When I was a child, the words “I’m bored” were always met with disdain from my parents, and swiftly met with something for me to do instead. As a result the word boredom has always had a negative connotation for me, however I’ve recently changed my thinking. 
As part of my ongoing postgraduate study I’ve undertaken a number of MOOC (massive open online courses), with the most recent being ‘How to Survive Your PhD’ run by Australian National University through edX. This 10-week course covered a number of topics to help PhD candidates and their families cope with what is expected throughout their degree, such as confidence, loneliness, fear and curiosity. Boredom was week nine’s topic, and made me view the idea in a whole new way. As someone who is running a business, studying, parenting and being a good partner, I don’t often consider myself to be bored. While watching the video and reading through the material associated with the topic I realised it wasn’t that I wasn’t often bored, but that I didn’t allow myself to be bored. I always start my day with a full list of tasks to complete, but even when I am enjoying what I would consider to be my down time (walking the dog, watching TV, eating lunch) I am either talking to another person, connecting via social media or checking emails. I don’t let my mind simply wander or be still very often. I made this point in the MOOC discussion, adding that I could see signs of boredom when completing tasks that don’t require constant thought, such as data collection for my degree. These include procrastinating, busying myself with other tasks first, or finding my thoughts elsewhere while working on the tasks. The course moderator asked me to consider if this was my body’s way of taking the lead and allowing times of boredom to give my mind a break. I think she was right (thanks Inger). Instead of avoiding boredom, I need to do more of the mind-stilling activities that I love, like:
- Colouring in
- Craft with my kids
- Walking along the river/in the gorge
- Eating ice cream with my family
- Taking bubble baths
All the activities on this list (and many more) make me happy, but are things I would usually only do when I’ve finished everything else. Now I’ve turned the idea of boredom on its head, I think taking that time to do such things would actually make me more productive. How about you join me and we make a pact to embrace boredom? Watch this video on The Value of Boredom by Genevieve Bell and tell me what you think.
