A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my home office, staring at a blank screen. I had a deadline looming, a topic I was genuinely excited about, and absolutely nothing was coming out. Writer’s block had me in a chokehold. So I did what I always do when this happens: I closed my laptop, left my phone on the desk, and went for a walk. No music. No podcast. Just me, the cool Irish air, and the sound of birds.
About twenty minutes in, with nothing but my own thoughts for company, the angle I had been searching for just appeared. Not gradually. It arrived almost fully formed, like it had been waiting for me to shut up long enough to hear it.
This isn’t unusual for me. In fact, some of my best writing has come after periods of doing absolutely nothing. And for a long time, I felt guilty about that. It felt lazy, like I was cheating somehow. But it turns out there’s a lot of science and history behind why boredom and solitude are so closely linked to creative thinking. Once I understood it, I stopped feeling guilty and started leaning into it.
Let me explain.
Our brains have something called the Default Mode Network, or DMN for short. It’s a network of brain regions that becomes active when we’re not focused on what’s going on around us. When we’re daydreaming, letting our minds wander, or simply sitting with our thoughts, the DMN kicks into gear. And this isn’t idle brain activity. Research published in PubMed Central has shown that the DMN is crucial for self-reflection, emotional processing, and mental exploration. It allows the mind to wander and explore different mental scenarios, promoting the connection of seemingly unrelated concepts.
In other words, when you’re doing “nothing,” your brain is actually doing some of its most important work..
Researchers at Penn State found something similar. Participants who were bored outperformed those who were relaxed, elated, or even distressed on creativity tests. One of the researchers, Karen Gasper, explained it in a way that stuck with me. She said that if you ask most people to think of vehicles, they’ll say “car.” But bored people are more likely to say something like “a camel is a vehicle.” Boredom loosens our mental categories. It pushes us beyond the obvious.
Researcher and author, Jeffrey Davis, M.A, has described boredom as a “variety-driving emotion,” one that primes us to seek out new and different experiences and solutions. It naturally fosters openness, which is a foundational facet of creative insight.
I think about this a lot in my own work. As a writer, I spend most of my days alone. I work from my home office, and on a typical day, I won’t speak to anyone but my wife. For years, I thought this was just an introvert thing, a quirk of my personality that happened to suit freelance writing. But the more I’ve read about this topic, the more I realize that the solitude isn’t just comfortable for me. It’s functional. It’s where the ideas come from.
And I’m far from the only one who has noticed this.
Einstein once wrote, “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” He also described himself as “truly a lone traveler” who never lost “a sense of distance and a need for solitude.”
Nikola Tesla put it even more bluntly. In a 1934 interview with the New York Times, he said: “The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
In an 1862 article, Henry David Thoreau wrote “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.” Charles Darwin also took long walks calling the path near his house in Kent, calling it his “thinking path“.
And then there’s J.K. Rowling. In 1990, she was stuck on a train that was delayed for four hours from Manchester to London. She didn’t have a pen, a notebook, or even an eyeliner to scribble with. So she just sat there. And in those four hours of enforced boredom, the characters of Harry Potter came to life in her mind. No distractions, no inputs, just her imagination running free.
I’d say these aren’t exceptions. They’re a pattern.
Now, here’s where I think the modern world is working against us. According to a survey, 76% of Americans feel uneasy leaving their phones at home, 84% check within the first ten minutes of waking up, and 46% consider themselves “addicted.” We have essentially eliminated boredom from our lives. Every spare moment is filled with scrolling, swiping, or streaming.
I’m guilty of this too. I used to reach for my phone the second I felt even a hint of mental downtime. Waiting for coffee? Phone. Stuck on a sentence? Phone. Lying in bed before sleep? Phone. It took me a while to realize that those little pockets of boredom I was filling were exactly the moments my brain needed to do its best creative work.
As a writer, I’ve noticed a direct relationship between how much unstructured alone time I have and how good my output is. On weeks when I’m constantly connected, constantly consuming content, my writing feels flat. It’s functional but uninspired. On weeks when I deliberately step away, take long walks, or just sit with my thoughts, the writing has more depth to it. The ideas are more original, the connections more surprising.
John Eastwood, a psychologist and co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom, put it well: “In that gap, there’s a real chance to discover something new.”
That gap is what we keep closing every time we pick up our phones.
The bottom line is this: boredom isn’t laziness. Solitude isn’t always loneliness. And doing “nothing” isn’t unproductive. These are the conditions under which your brain does some of its most original, most creative work. The science backs it up, history is full of examples, and if you’re anything like me, your own experience probably confirms it too.
So the next time you find yourself bored, sitting in silence, or staring out a window with nothing to do, resist the urge to fill that space. Let your mind wander. You might be surprised by where it takes you.
As always, I hope you found some value in this post.
Until next time.
