If you’re anything like me, you’ve learned that sitting still and doing nothing is tantamount to a sin. Doing nothing means being lazy – procrastinating, right? Everyone is so busy – reading, journaling, working, working out, talking, running, taking classes – is it any wonder we’re all exhausted? It seems the older I get, the faster I move. I thought I was supposed to be slowing down.
We are all pressured to do more. Want to make a million dollars? You better be out there grinding, baby. Do you want to look better, feel better? There are hundreds, maybe thousands of different Yoga routines, workout regimens and races to get into. Want to advance in your career, find the love of your life, harmonize your chakras? There’s an app for that! Do you want to be more creative? There are dozens of courses to take, videos to watch, podcasts to follow …
Stop.
You’re doing it wrong.
You can’t really be creative, or even really efficient and useful, if you’re tearing around all the time trying to catch an imaginary brass ring. Multitasking only works in computers – they have multiple CPUs, each one of which can be working on a different program. You only have one. And while your brain is an incredibly complex and powerful machine, it needs to be operated in accordance with the system specifications. We need rest and relaxation on a regular basis in order to operate properly. And I don’t mean 4 hours of sleep. 8 – standard.
Also, I don’t mean that sleep will make you creative, either. You need more than that. I hear some people say ‘Meditate’ – fine, if you’re into it. But that’s also not what I mean. Do this – turn off all the electronics, put the self-help books away, unplug the TV and veg out. You need to get bored. No drinking, no eating, no talking – just sit. Stare out the window if you have to. If it gets to be too much, go for a walk. Not ten minutes, mind you – 3 miles, minimum. Use paths you already know, if you can. Walking in circles is good. I’m talking total boredom.
After a while, something weird will happen – your mind will switch gears, and you’ll start to have ideas. Crazy ideas. Huge designs. Tiny intuitions. You may even catch yourself talking to yourself. Don’t worry, you’re not crazy (necessarily). This is the same kind of thing the geeks were doing in high school all the time, remember? Wandering the halls, mumbling to themselves? Don’t dismiss it. Most of those geeks are rich, now. This is how they got their brilliant ideas. They embraced solitude and quiet.
You see, the brain works in strange and wonderful ways. While some ideas and thoughts are born during interactions with other smart people, and a tiny number rise to the surface in board meetings, most ideas find the creative person in moments of quiet and boredom. Painters, musicians and physicists throughout history have taken long walks, usually alone, in order to clear their minds and find inspiration. Writers famously sit alone in their studios, staring at the walls until the words come. Quiet and solitude supercharges the creative centers of the brain.
Non-electronic ‘alone time’ does other things for you as well. It makes you mentally tougher for one thing. If the only ideas and images in your head are handed to you through a screen, guess what? You’ve been brain-washed. Seriously, you need to sit still and be quiet or walk around in nature for a bit in order to have your own ideas. Otherwise, you’re just regurgitating someone else’s thoughts. And how do you know if they’re even correct? Of course, you don’t really know if your own ideas are any good either – do you? Now – here’s where journalling actually becomes useful.
Once you start having thoughts of your own, don’t lose them – write them down! As fast as you have them, write them down. Don’t worry about grammar or syntax or pretty words or any of that crap they tried to shove into your brain in school. As you start to fill up your journal over the ensuing weeks and months, go back and look at what you wrote before. Honestly, it’s great for a laugh. Which also encourages honesty and humility in you. Any ideas which survive a second look need to be researched – maybe you were on to something. If you find truly good ideas in there – take them and do something with them. Now.
Everything in our world started out as an idea in somebody’s head. Some ideas were immediately adopted, some died early, others took time to germinate. If you feel you have had a worthy idea – your own idea – that needs to go out into the world and live, you need to make that happen. Don’t put it off because you’re too busy. Who cares if someone else has already thought of it? And don’t dismiss it as too crazy.
Airplanes and personal computers were once crazy ideas. Two bicycle mechanics from Dayton solved the first problem, a couple of college dropouts solved the second one. The difference between those guys and the hundreds, if not thousands, of other people looking for the same answers is very simple: they didn’t give up. Never forget: It’s only Crazy until it works – then it’s Genius. But you have to have the idea first.
This kind of mental serendipity, a kind of thinking process with no ultimate goal, is the farthest thing from procrastination possible. It is a literal superpower, and it’s available to everyone. But you have to give it space and time to work correctly. And boredom. Just lay back in a sunlit, grassy field and think of nothing. That’s worth doing all by itself, isn’t it? Do yourself a favor and embrace the art of doing nothing at all.
Be bored. Be well.
bcd