Strategic Boredom

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In the age of constant notifications, motivational hacks, and productivity culture, boredom has been cast as a villain, something to escape at all costs.

What if Strategic Boredom is actually an untapped superpower in your personal and professional life?

What is Strategic Boredom?

Strategic boredom is defined as “the intentional practice of creating periods of low stimulation and minimal activity in your day, not as a form of laziness, but as a deliberate mental strategy to restore focus, spark creativity, and support better decision-making.”

How does Strategic Boredom Benefit You?

Neuroscience research suggests that deliberate periods of Strategic Boredom can unlock creativity, reduce burnout, and help you make better life decisions.

How Does Strategic Boredom Work?

• When you’re not focused on a single task, like during Strategic Boredom, your brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) becomes active.
• Your DMN is a set of interconnected brain regions (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, angular gyrus, and others) involved in self-reflection, imagination, and future planning.
• Research Studies (e.g., Mason et al., 2007 in Science ) show that a Strategic Boredom state helps your brain integrate scattered bits of information, which often leads to creative intuitive insights and problem-solving breakthroughs.

Why Strategic Boredom Works:

• Your brain resets in an idle mode. Research studies show that when your brain enters the Strategic Boredom state, it activates your brain’s default mode network (DMN), the part of the brain linked to intuitive insight and creative problem solving.
• Your Dopamine levels balance out. Dopamine is a compound that acts on areas of the brain to give you feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. Constant novelty from new information in your life (e.g., viewing social media, reading emails, texting, etc.) creates dopamine spikes and crashes, keeping your brain stuck in a low-focus mode. Strategic Boredom helps your brain recalibrate.
• Clarity emerges from mental space. During Strategic Boredom, without thousands of inputs coming into your brain competing for attention, your creative intuitive insight signals (i.e., your true priorities) begin to more easily flow through and are easier to understand.

How Can You Practice Strategic Boredom:

1. Schedule a Strategic Boredom Block
   Block 20–40 minutes in your calendar where you do nothing stimulating: no phone, no texts, no social media, no reading, no tasks. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. or walk outside by yourself in silence.
2. The Strategic Boredom Single-Task Rule
   Pick an ultra-simple task (e.g., folding laundry, mopping a floor, etc.) and give it your full attention during your Strategic Boredom Block. The point is, not to focus task, but to use the mundane task to allow your brain to enter a Strategic Boredom state.
3. Use Strategic Boredom as a Decision Filter
   If you can’t think of a reason beyond “it’s exciting” to keep doing something, wait until the boredom passes before making the decision. You’ll often choose differently once the dopamine rush fades.

By practicing Strategic Boredom, you create the mental breathing room that lets you hear your deepest insights, rediscover curiosity, and make choices from a place of calm clarity instead of constant stimulation and create a positive impact in your life.

Out There on the Edge of Everything®…

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Lesavich, PhD.  All rights reserved.

Certified solution-focused life coach and experienced business coach.

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