The Science of Boredom: What Research Says About Creativity
Explore what research says about boredom and creativity, where the evidence stops, and practical ways to leave a little space between phone checks.
Written from product-building experience. Sources and further reading are listed below. This guide is educational, not medical advice. How we research and update articles.
When was the last time you were truly bored? Not restless-while-scrolling bored. Not waiting-for-a-video-to-load bored. But genuinely, uncomfortably, nothing-to-do bored?
If you can’t remember, think about an ordinary wait: an elevator ride, a checkout line, or a few minutes before a meeting. Do you often reach for your phone before deciding what you want to do? Those small gaps are a place to experiment.
Could some of those gaps be useful? Research has explored a link between boring activities and creative performance, but that does not make boredom a cure or a requirement for every good idea.
Notice the Urge to Fill a Gap
Boredom can feel like wanting to do something without finding anything appealing. You might reach for your phone to fill that gap. Noticing the urge gives you a chance to decide whether checking is what you want.
Try leaving a small gap unfilled and see what happens: a thought about your day, an idea, or simply a quiet moment. None of those outcomes needs to be impressive to be worthwhile.
What the Creativity Research Found
In two studies by Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman, participants completed boring activities before creative tasks. The studies, involving 80 and 90 participants, found higher creative performance after some boring activities than in the control conditions. Results differed by the activity and creative task.
These were small laboratory studies, so treat a quiet break as something worth trying rather than a guaranteed creativity technique.
What Your Brain Does When You’re Not Busy
In 2001, Marcus Raichle and colleagues described a set of brain regions that are consistently active when people rest rather than focus on an external task. It is now known as the default mode network.
A review by Randy Buckner and colleagues links this network to internally directed thought: remembering the past, imagining the future, and thinking about yourself and other people. That does not make idle time automatically productive. It does suggest that a mind left to wander is not simply switched off. When every spare moment is filled with a feed, there is less room for that kind of unprompted thinking.
The Doom-Scrolling Connection
Boredom may be one reason you start scrolling. It is not the only possibility: you might be looking for news, connection, reassurance, or a distraction from a difficult task. Notice what was happening just before you opened the feed.
Ask yourself whether scrolling is meeting that need. If you wanted connection, a message to a friend might fit better. If you were just filling a wait, you could try leaving the phone in your pocket for a minute.
The aim is to give yourself another option, rather than make every pause a test of willpower.
How to Reclaim Boredom
You don’t need a meditation retreat. You just need to stop filling every gap. Here are practical ways to reintroduce boredom into your life:
1. Schedule “Nothing Time”
Try a few minutes with no agenda and no feed. Start small, and choose an ordinary activity such as sitting outside or making tea if doing nothing feels unpleasant. There is no required duration.
2. Take Phone-Free Walks
Leave your phone at home—or at least in your pocket, on silent. Let your mind wander or notice your surroundings. An enjoyable walk is enough; it does not have to produce an idea.
3. Wait Without Devices
The next time you’re in line, in a waiting room, or early to a meeting—don’t reach for your phone. Just wait. Look around. Let your brain do what it was designed to do.
4. Embrace Monotonous Tasks
Washing dishes, folding laundry, mowing the lawn—these “boring” tasks are opportunities. Do them without a podcast. Let the repetition become a form of meditation.
5. Keep a “Boredom Log”
When you feel the urge to grab your phone, pause and write down what you were feeling. Often, it’s not boredom at all—it’s anxiety, loneliness, or restlessness wearing boredom’s mask.
minded: A Prompt Before the Next Scroll
Every time you open a new tab, you’re at a crossroads: mindless consumption or intentional action. minded creates a small moment of nothing in that critical instant.
Instead of immediately feeding the boredom-avoidance reflex, minded presents a gentle pause—a mood check-in, a reflective question. It’s not much. Just a few seconds of stillness before the scroll.
Use that pause to decide whether to continue—or to leave a small gap in your day.
Start With One Unfilled Moment
Pick one ordinary wait today and leave your phone aside briefly. Notice whether you want to keep doing that, change the setting, or try something else.
You do not need to eliminate entertainment or make boredom a goal. You are simply making room for a choice before the next check.
Sources and Further Reading
- Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative? - Creativity Research Journal
- A default mode of brain function - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- The brain's default network: Anatomy, function, and relevance to disease - Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Add a pause before the next scroll.
minded creates a small moment of intention before distracting tabs, feeds, and phone habits take over.
See how minded works