Strategic Boredom

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Are you bored are work? How often have your heard from your children and other people that they are bored.

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

What if Strategic Boredom is actually an untapped superpower you can use 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 anything, 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 from all over your brain, 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 a Strategic Boredom state, it enters an unique idle mode. In this unique idle mode, Strategic Boredom helps your brain recalibrate into a new state.
• Your Dopamine levels are Balanced. 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, talking on the phone, etc.) creates Dopamine spikes and valleys, keeping your brain stuck in an agitated state. Your Dopamine levels remain constant during a Strategic Boredom state.
• Clarity emerges from your mental space. During a Strategic Boredom state, 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 in Your Personal and Professional Life:

1. Schedule a Regular Strategic Boredom Block: Block 20 minutes in your calendar each day where you do nothing stimulating your brain: no phone calls, no texts, no social media, no reading, no talking, etc. Schedule this Strategic Boredom block on a regular basis.
2. Use the Strategic Boredom Single-Task Rule: Pick a single ultra-simple task (e.g., folding laundry, mopping a floor, etc. at home, cleaning up your work space, filing paperwork, etc. at work) and give it your full attention during your Strategic Boredom Block. The point is, not to focus on the single ultra-simple task, but to use such a mundane task to allow your brain to enter a Strategic Boredom state.
3. Use Strategic Boredom as a Cognitive Filter: As you perform your single task during your Strategic Boredom block, use your brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) as a cognitive filter to filter out all other thoughts. You can then receive fresh insights, unexpected connections and creative solutions that emerge during your Strategic Boredom state.

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 to create a positive impact in your personal and professional 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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