Happened to run into this HBR article the other day. Quickly eye-balled it like I do with a lot of these sort of blogs. But somehow, the contents of this blog hung on in my head for some time and I ended up reading it again in detail.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/the-creative-benefits-of-boredom/
The summary of this article is simple – certain amount of boredom at work may actually enhance the quality of creative work that an individual produces. The article makes references to a few simple experiments that have been conducted to make this observation. Although the experiments sound overly simplistic and use sample sizes that are too small to be able to form the basis of a reliable theory, I tend to agree with what the article hypothesizes. Perhaps, it has to do with having frequently watched – and lived through – this dynamic playing out from very close quarters.
The blog also triggered a broader thought that I am going to try and translate into another another loose, unscientific and unvalidated hypothesis. The concept of boredom giving way to creative bursts has applicability and relevance in at least two specific areas – one with self management and one with career management, as seen from an individual’s perspective as well as from the perspective of a manager who has the responsibility of managing and developing people’s careers:
1. Energy Management through a day – On days when I have found myself in a number of such meetings and phone calls that occupy my time – but don’t necessarily engage me intellectually – I find myself generating a lot of creative ideas. I am not going to make a lame attempt to explain this with analysis related to hormones, etc., but it may have to do with one’s sub-conscious brain finding the space to start firing up and making the kind of connections that are waiting to be made. A fully occupied mind clearly doesn’t find the kind of down-time that is required to make these connections. I can’t claim to have audited this very systematically, but I haven’t felt a similar burst of creativity during times when I have replaced these phases of boredom with other activities that interest/engage me.
Clearly, it is hard to insert “Boredom Time” blocks on one’s calendar. But in a well-regulated manner, perhaps we should allow ourselves to be pulled into such meetings and engagements every so often. The key will be to get involved non-judgmentally – however mind-numbing the engagement may be – so one gets into the right mental frame for creativity to find expression.
2. Career Management – This may sound like an extrapolation beyond bounds, but I have also noticed this in some people’s careers that their best work has come right after a lull that they have had….either because they were between jobs or between roles or were simply taking some down-time by design. People respond to lull phases in their careers differently – the more self-assured ones treat it as welcome renewal time and yet others live through such times with a lot of anxiety. I have not had the good fortune of such a period in my career to know how I would handle it, but I can sincerely say that I have shown (in my hiring decisions) a definitive bias towards people who have gone through such periods in their careers. And if they are coming out of one such phase into a critical role that I have, it is an added source of optimism and excitement when I land such people. In most cases, such an assessment has worked…often enough for me to have continued to use this parameter in my hiring choices.
In this case again – it may not be just a case of the individual’s physical, mental and emotional faculties being fully renewed. I am sure it also has to do with the down-time allowing interesting connections to be made and several new neural pathways to be formed in one’s brain.
A final note – clearly, it is not possible to plan one’s calendar and one’s career precisely enough to create these sort of “Boredom Phase” interventions…at least not with the kind of frequency that is high enough to be useful and low enough to not turn into unhealthy inactivity. Is regular meditation then, the answer to achieve a similar outcome as (1) and periodic vacations and retreats the answers to derive the same benefit as (2)?
Wish I knew!
An Amateur's Blog - Sachin Desai 