Boredom makes your life better.
In preparing to write this piece, I found my mind void of any ideas. How in the world do I convince my readers to give boredom a try?
So, I decided to embody this article’s ethos and take a short walk from Claremont McKenna College’s Reading Room to a nearby empty space.
And I just sat.
After spending some time thinking about my breakfast, counting all the rectangles in sight and wondering if I should even write an article in the first place, I decided that typing something was better than doing nothing.
In other words, it was boredom that got me to write this article about boredom.
In discussing boredom, I’m referring to the feeling we get when we are understimulated. This looks different for everyone — for some, it’s brought upon by reading a non-fiction book about insurance policy and for others, it’s the product of waiting in line.
I’m telling you to actively seek this feeling out.
Boredom inspires creativity. In a 2014 study, researchers split participants into two groups: a treatment group that had to do the monotonous task of copying phone numbers from a phone book and a control group that didn’t. Both groups were then asked to brainstorm uses for plastic cups. The group assigned the boring task ultimately succeeded — at last, they had the space to daydream.
What does this mean for you? Well, if you are dealing with a serious writer’s block for an essay (like I initially was for this article), the answer could be to set a timer for 15-30 minutes and sit in silence.
This even works for tasks that don’t require as much creativity. For example, if I dread studying for an exam, I give myself two choices: to do nothing or to study. A lot of times, I prefer to do nothing until I get so bored that studying becomes more appealing.
I understand that my request is not an easy one — accessing boredom’s many benefits, including creativity, introspection and attention to detail takes intentional effort — but it’s important.
Lucas Engheben HM ’27 appreciates boredom for the relaxation and introspection it can bring.
“If you’re constantly occupied, you’re not going to understand yourself as well,” Engheben says.
It’s helpful to think of boredom in visual art terms. A fundamental concept in painting is the interplay of negative and positive space. To be visually appealing, a painting requires both positive space — the painting’s area of interest — and negative space — the empty background.
Boredom is negative space. Letting “mental negative space” in enhances our positive space: the external world around us.
If you take 30 minutes to simply sit at your favorite grassy spot on campus, free from distractions, I can guarantee that you’ll find aspects of your environment that you never noticed before, from the different hues of the blades of grass or features of the architecture or nearby buildings.
As students at the Claremont Colleges, taking this time can feel like something we don’t “need” — especially when we’re stressed out. We’re all familiar with how intense the workload can get during the semester.
Naturally, empty time slots in our day often feel like moments to either get some extra work done or to take a much-needed phone break. This prominence of digital distraction has made it much easier to avoid boredom. The inconvenience of a long line can be easily offset by scrolling through TikTok; a walk to class is time for texting one’s friends; a boring lecture can become an online shopping spree.
Ultimately, spending more time on our phones — or less time being bored — shrinks our capacity for the creativity, introspection and attention to detail that boredom inspires.
So, let’s take active steps to create more pockets of boredom throughout our days.
This could look like scheduling 15 minutes into your calendar for boredom time or turning your phone on grayscale to make it less appealing. My personal favorite is meditation, which takes embracing boredom to the next level by focusing the attention on something mundane like the breath.
Try sitting through your next plane ride without any music, games, podcasts or even a book, for that matter. The boredom might surprise you.
Parishi Kanuga CM ’26 is from Los Angeles, California. She likes doing nothing, writing articles about why you should do nothing and sleeping.
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