Benefits of the Bored Mind
Before the COVID crisis, life had become easy and accessible. We could go where we want, whenever we want and super-fast. With entertainment at our fingertips, stimulation was our drug. Worldwide food options and access to goods within hours of placing orders was not luxury, but a staple. People will go and pick up your takeout food from just about anywhere you want and deliver it to you. Your takeout food. Let that sink in for a moment. And even if we wanted to go pick up our own, take out food, we can hire a personal driver, in whatever luxurious mood we are in(I won’t deny I go super deluxe every once in a while), to drive us there and back. Many got into a state of complacent, consistent obligation to staying busy all the time.
Without something breaking those patterns, resetting the wires and allowing space to dream the new innovations, most Entrepreneurs will continue in their drone like state until their lack of growth and change forces them into submission and ultimate business failure. What if breaking bad patterns could be done through one of the most primal forms of emotion ever, boredom?
Scientists have proven that good things happen from a bored mind. While at first a counter intuitive thought, the bored mind has a chance to reset, to patterns that are more productive and creative. A study published in the Academy of Management Discoveries journal found that an individual who is bored, will turn to creative and unusual ways of doing something for the mere aspect of not being bored. Yet, the outcome becomes an Entrepreneurs greatest tool for what he/she does best; discoveries for the next evolution of a product, workflow system innovations, brand building or marketing strategy developments. Discoveries so creative, the productive mind could have never dreamed of in a normally programmed day.
Reset Your Nervous System It is exhausting for the brain to be barraged with constant external stimulation. Over time, you exhaust your brain and it can only function in an emergency fight or flight scenario. Downtime allows the brain to recover from this cognitive overload. By allowing boredom to occur on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly pattern, you recharge your brain back to having the ability to dream, think and do.
For myself, I call it going back to center. I am a yoga junkie for sure and nothing feels sweeter than overextending the mind and body, to then re-calibrate with an equal level of stillness and calm, called “going back to center”. I brought this concept into business management years ago and find it to be just what the doctored ordered for an over extended leader.
Find Creativity At its core boredom is “a search for neural stimulation that isn’t satisfied”, says Sandi Mann, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Lancashire. So, if we can’t find it, we create it. So, the more still we can make our mind or the more bored it gets, the more creativity can be found. When we can daydream, like we did so early in the first stages of our business’s, that is when the true innovation can occur. Even as you find yourself at home, there are distractions everywhere to gently keep the mind stimulated, reorganizing that closet, T.V. binging and cooking. Get into a routine of walking, laying outside on your deck or taking a long hot bath. Do these things with no other stimulation like music or your phone and see where your mind wanders.
Implement New Workflow Patterns Once we give ourselves time to reset, finding new ways of working are abound to happen. We are creatures of routine and habit, which develops patterns for how we live and work. Some of these are productive, some are just out of years of doing something one way. If you realize that the last time you updated your Ops Manual was 1995, it is time to find some new ways. It could be new schedules or work from home opportunities for your staff. What about all the new advancements technology has come out with? Automated scheduling systems, using online communication tools like Zoom and processing systems like Square create productivity and workflow that is more efficient and creates versatility with where someone needs to be to keep working.
Living through a historical moment in time, like we are all living through now, is going to be life altering. For myself, I have already started feeling impacts. Let’s be honest, most of us don’t have a choice these days not to have to go through some change. What if we all got a little bored, do a reset and dream the next dream? What if you could come out of the COVID lockdown ahead?