Boredom is the Antidote to Many of Modern Life’s Problems
The Amplified Impact Podcast
February 3rd, 2023
Boredom isn’t a bad thing. It’s the key to boosting productivity and overcoming life’s challenges.
In today’s episode of the podcast, Anthony discusses the important role boredom plays in productivity.
Anthony shares his thoughts on how the pursuit of hyper-focused productivity can lead to burnout and being overwhelmed.
He talks about how boredom can play a crucial role in solving problems such as foggy thinking, feeling overwhelmed, and dealing with distractions.
By taking a step back and making space for boredom, one can find clarity, overcome anxiety, and improve their work quality.
Tune in to learn more about how boredom can have a positive impact on your productivity.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“Boredom is the antidote to many of life’s problems like foggy thinking, distractibility, feeling overwhelmed, and isolation. Making space for boredom can lead to deeper clarity, inspiration, and creativity. ” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the podcast guys. I’m really psyched to have you here. Let’s get into it. Today I want to talk about the idea of boredom and how boredom can play a really important, pivotal role in being productive. And it’s kind of counterintuitive because. Boredom by definition kind of implies that you’re not doing anything , you’re not doing anything of interest or of high value.
And I think in pursuit of like hyper-focused productivity, a lot of times, People make the mistake and they go down the rabbit hole. They’re just trying to cram their schedule and get more and more and more things done. And we’ve talked about this a lot, that it’s not enough to be busy. Like busy isn’t the goal.
The goal is to be effective. Like we don’t, we don’t want to be in motion. We want to have traction and momentum towards a particular direction. . And so when we just try and cram our life with more and more [00:01:00] things to do, it can give you the sense of progress. Like you’re checking off the things on the to-do list, but I, I liken it to being a car whose wheels are spinning at a thousand RPMs, just an inch off the ground.
It’s just all wasted motion. It’s not taking you anywhere. And so a lot of people, myself included, we really struggle to. Realize, hey, when the wheels are off the ground and you’re not going to be making progress, just let it idle. It’s okay to let the engine idle. And that sometimes, in fact, you should make time to take the car intentionally off the ground and let it idle.
And that’s what I want to talk about here today, which is that boredom, I believe is the anecdote to. Most of life’s problems. Not all of them, but many of them. Things like foggy thinking or distractibility or [00:02:00] feelings of overwhelm or isolation. A lot of these can be solved with boredom, . So let’s, let’s walk through this foggy thinking.
I find boredom is like when I’m. And I have nothing to do. I leave my phone at home and I just go out into the wilderness and I just kind of sit for hours and you’re just bored. There’s nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs and playing the dirt. I find that’s when I do my best thinking. I find that’s when I get the most clarity.
It’s when I, I get away from all the stimuli of life. The noise falls away and the ripples start to die down, and in that quiet, in that, that bored place. There’s room for inspiration, for creativity, and for just deeper clarity of thought. So when you’re, when you’re foggy and your thinking is muddled, it’s usually because there’s just too many thoughts and there’s too many priorities.
There’s too many things to hold [00:03:00] straight, and you just can’t sort ’em all out, and it’s overwhelming, which leads into the next. Problem in life that I want to talk about, which is the feeling of overwhelm. And again, this, this ties back to when we cram our calendars full of stuff back to back to back, just trying to do more, always doing more.
Then it is very easy to see how this can spiral into a sense of overwhelm. Like there’s just the to-do list never ends. And if you’re an entrepreneur, a business person or just like a somebody who’s trying so hard to tap into all that greatness that they know that they have inside of them, and they feel the pressure of the fact that we only have so much time on this earth and you’re, you’re desperate to make the most of it, then you’re going to slip, slide into the same place that I do, which is just packing more and more things onto the calendar.
But when you make space for boredom, when you make that space, you start. You start to deal with the anxiety [00:04:00] that naturally occurs when you’re not moving things forward. Right. And a lot of times we don’t sit and process those feelings. . Uh, instead we mask them or we push through and we say, I’m overwhelmed right now, but I don’t have time to feel these things and therefore, I, I, I’m going to, I’m going to overcome the overwhelmed by doing more
And that’s, that’s not, you know, this isn’t a situation where you can fight fire with fire sometimes. The, the answer is that you just have to smother the fire. You have to take a step back and you have to give yourself the space to be bored and put out that overwhelm and say, and wrestle with those emotions.
Number three. I want to talk about here is distraction, which is when you have so much on your plate and you’re putting more and more pressure on yourself just to perform and achieve more, um, it typically means that you’re increasing the pure quantity of work, not necessarily the quality [00:05:00] of what you’re outputting, you’re just doing.
Not necessarily doing it better. And as a result, when you have so many things that you’re, you’re trying to juggle simultaneously, it’s really easy to get distracted even in those moments when you’re trying to be present, let’s say, with a loved one or you’re, you’re sitting down and trying to do the deep work because you have so many competing priorities, so many things that you’re trying to accomplish, they keep seeping in and coming in sideways and you, you get this attentional residue.
It’s like this sticky scuzzy scum that just kind of sticks onto the, onto your brain and kind of pulls you away from. The things that you’re working on or where you, where you want to direct your focus on any given moment. And I find that boredom really helps with that because initially when you’re bored, like to get to that state of boredom, you need to wrestle with all these feelings of overwhelming distraction.
Like they’re trying, like you’re, you feel this [00:06:00] physiologically in your body trying to pull you back to your phone or pull you back to your to-do list. And once you start to push through that to a certain. Of boredom, then you start to realize that a lot of that’s really not that important, that the world’s not going to end as a result of just distancing yourself from it and making space for, for nothing.
And the last bit then that I want to talk about in terms of, you know, many of life’s problems, I think one of the biggest one, That, that boredom can really solve for is that feeling of isolation, feeling alone. I think a lot of times we as high performers, we make ourselves feel alone as a consequence of just the tasks that we’re doing and how we’re pouring ourselves into it, and alienating the friends, the families, the loved ones, the people around us in pursuit of that goal.
But when we make space for boredom, you know, the, the, the truth of the matter is that sitting around and. Having conversation or just being present with people in a room, that can be [00:07:00] kind of boring sometimes as compared to the alternative of pulling open your phone and playing on social media, right?
Like sitting at a dinner table and being present with the person across from you feels boring, and that’s why you’re reaching for your phone every couple of seconds. And ultimately, This just fuels the feeling of isolation because you’re present, but you’re not really there. And so we can be in a group of people, be still yet, be completely alone because we’re not actually connecting.
And I find that being comfortable with the boredom or the pace. Of life. When you take a step back from like all the digital media in particular, because that’s like life accelerated at a thousand. When you take a step back and you live life at more of a natural pace, it will feel very boring at first. But as is your brain kind of detoxing from the dopa dopamine, which is so [00:08:00] important because at a certain point our brain is.
Evolutionarily wired to handle the amounts of dopamine that we’re constantly pouring into it when we’re on social media or when we’re watching tv, like we weren’t designed to live with this level of stimulus. And so making space for boredom, I find is one of the greatest anecdotes to many of life’s problems, all of which we’ve talked about, or many of which we’ve talked about here.
I think especially when it comes to being hyper-focused and productive. This is kind of a counterintuitive idea, but I encourage you to think about in your life, where are you making space for boredom? Where are you being intentional about carving? Areas to say, I, I’m okay being bored here, and here’s how I’m actually going to facilitate the boredom.
Here’s how I’m going to encourage it. And like we’ve talked about in past episodes, I find it helpful to create if, when then [00:09:00] statements for, for this. Because like an if so, for clarity, for an if, when then statement, this is saying, okay, if this thing happens, or when this thing happens, then this is how I’m going to respond.
It’s just simply creating an an intention, an implementation intention about what you’re going to do when a certain event occurs, or how you’re going to trigger a habit. So for instance, this could be when I’m feeling. Then, or rather, when I complete my task for the day and I get to that place on my calendar that says it’s time for boredom.
then I’m going to turn off my phone, I’m going to leave the house. I’m going to go for a long walk with nothing on me. Right. So you created that if, when? When? Or that? If, when. Then statement. So when I have time blocked off of my calendar, then this is how I’m going to go and live at the boredom. Or when I’m at dinner [00:10:00] with somebody, I’m going to leave my phone in the car.
Or if it’s after seven at. I’m going to turn off the, the internet router, right? And so you’re, you’re having these, this game plan, this implementation intention and research consistently shows that people that have implementation intentions are far, far more likely. It’s something like 70% more likely to actually follow through on the thing that they intended to do versus the people who just say the thing or even write the thing down that they intend to do.
So create that if, when, then statement. Go, come get poured. I give you permission now. Give yourself that permission. I know that’s the hard part. So if you guys got value out of this, um, that’s awesome. Seriously, I really appreciate it. Just keep being awesome. Keep being here. Do me a favor. The only way this podcast grows is if you keep spreading the word, showing it with friends, family, people that you think will get some value out of it.
I appreciate it. And guys, I’ll see you in the next episode.[00:11:00]
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