Sit and do NOTHING. Watch what happens...

This is a bit of a confession for me.

Doom Scrolling

I pay too much attention to the "attention economy". I doom-scroll on Reddit. I watch YouTube shorts. One night, I watched "shorts" for 3 hours before I realized what I was doing. The attention grabbers are winning. 

But then I read somewhere that it's good to be bored. What kind of advice is that? 

But this got me thinking...  when did my best ideas come?  And from where?

In the shower. On the bus. When doing a chore. When playing a game.

Invention

When I was a child I invented games all the time.  They came to me more frequently on rainy days. Perhaps it was because there was nothing to do outside so time to invent something inside...

I invented a marble soccer game that had a very complex set of rules.  Rules so complex that when I explained to my Uncle Mike (I was named after him and my cousin named after my dad, "preserving" them) he started to get that look on his face that people get when you know you have lost them.

The Brain Likes Being Bored

The article went on to say (I am very much paraphrasing here) that with no stimuli (like rainy days in the '70s), your brain starts to process backlogs of unresolved items; it basically goes over its "to do list".

I'm not in a lot of control over what item(s) that get processed, but I find that when I turn the music off, stop binge watching tv, and put the phone away - suddenly ideas start to percolate. 

I think most of the ideas for my cards and darts game came from when I was in the shower or walking without the phone constantly grasping for my attention.  Or just playing darts then having an idea and writing it down.

Often crossover ideas happen too: if I'm doing one thing (idly, not thinking too much about it), an idea may come along relating what I am seeing to a project I'm working on.

Put It Away!

So put the phone away.  Sit in a chair and be happy to be bored. You'll be amazed what happens when you do. do.