In a Recent op-ed published by the New York Times, the American writer Pamela Paul calls on all parents:”Let your kids get bored!According to her, boredom would boost their creativity and their ability to come up with ideas. So is boredom useful for everyone when you want to innovate?
Getting bored works and it's proven by science
Hyperconnected, overloaded with extracurricular activities, today's children cannot bear the slightest moment of boredom. If you believe Pamela Paul in her NYTimes article, however, teaching them to be bored would allow them to realize very early on that it is up to them to make life interesting. And therefore force them to “innovate” in their immediate environment, in their activities.
So what better way than an empty children's room to stimulate creativity, to force the mind to imagine new “toys”? When, as an entrepreneur, I speak to give a talk on this subject that I am passionate about, I often ask the question of boredom as part of the creative process. And speaking with other speakers who specialize in the same subject, I realized that many also see boredom as a driver of”Slow Thinking”, of creation, of imagination.
According to the Academy of Management Discoveries magazine, boredom stimulates creativity and productivity.
But if you believe one scientific study published in the American magazine Academy of Management Discoveries, in fact, boredom seems to stimulate creativity and even productivity. This unpleasant sensation pushes us to get out of boredom, to occupy ourselves intelligently, and thus boosts our ability to innovate.
What about management?
What should also be noted in this study is that it is published and relayed not by the usual scientific biology or neuroscience journals such as Nature or Science, but by a scientific review - just as serious - of management!
The question of creativity, innovation and boredom is therefore a subject that seems to be of immediate interest to management specialists. Should we suggest that employees be bored? Impossible. Unimaginable. And perhaps it is not so much boredom that should be considered then, but emptiness. In any case, the ability to focus on an “object”, an idea, away from all distractions.
So what do you think of these famous rooms of creativity and innovation, full of post-it notes, paintings, pens of all colors, games? Are they well suited to the innovation mechanism? Shouldn't completely empty rooms be considered instead? And create empty spaces for employees? Times of “creative space”?
Wouldn't it be better to consider completely empty creative rooms? And create empty spaces for employees?
We can sense the paradox: if you block “boring” slots in your agenda, is it still boring or is it another workshop that you need to do so as not to get bored? And how do you explain to your boss that you decided to spend time lazing around looking at the ceiling, to find ideas and increase your efficiency? What can companies offer to “institutionalize” boredom—or emptiness, space—as a good practice at work? Extensive construction site.
And you: are you able to handle boredom? Use it to find innovative ideas.
