You have probably heard that boredom breeds creativity. That the best ideas arrive in the shower, on a long drive, or staring out of a train window.
There is something to it. It is also a smaller claim than the slogan, and it is worth knowing exactly how small, because the honest version is more useful than the hopeful one.
Does boredom increase creativity?
In some conditions, yes, modestly. The research supports a narrow version: a stretch of dull, undemanding time can leave you better at certain creative tasks afterwards.
It does not support the idea that being bored is a creative state in itself, or that more boredom means more ideas. What the studies show is that what you do before and during a creative problem matters, and that a non-stimulating gap can be a useful part of it.
Does boredom spark creativity?
There is one experiment that says so directly.
Mann and Cadman (2014) asked people to do a deliberately boring task, copying phone numbers. Afterwards, those people generated more creative uses for plastic cups.
That is a real result, and it is the closest thing to a direct test of the question. It is also one lab task and one creativity measure. A single study, with one kind of boring task and one kind of idea-generation test, cannot tell you whether the effect holds for writing a song, designing a product, or solving a hard work problem.
Source: Mann & Cadman, Creativity Research Journal, 2014.
Does boredom help creativity if you are stuck on something?
Possibly, though the mechanism looks like mind-wandering rather than boredom as a feeling.
Baird and colleagues (2012) studied people who had already started working on a problem and then took a break. An undemanding task that allowed their minds to wander during the break improved their creative solutions to those problems.
Notice the two conditions. The problem had already been started, so the mind had something to work on. And the break task was undemanding, so it left room to drift. A break filled with something absorbing, like a feed, is neither of those things.
Source: Baird et al., Psychological Science, 2012.
Does boredom lead to creativity on its own?
Not on its own, and this is where the popular version goes wrong.
The studies above do not show that boredom produces ideas out of nothing. They show that a low-stimulation gap can help when something is already in your head to chew on. Nothing in them says that an empty afternoon will turn you into a writer or an inventor.
It is also not free. Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010) used experience sampling and found that people's minds wandered about 47% of the time, and that people were less happy when they did. A wandering mind is not automatically a pleasant or productive one. Some of what comes up in the gaps is worry, not inspiration.
Source: Killingsworth & Gilbert, Science, 2010.
Why do we avoid the very gaps that might help?
Because being left alone with your own thoughts is harder than it sounds.
Wilson and colleagues (2014) had people sit alone with their thoughts for 6 to 15 minutes. Many chose to give themselves a mild electric shock rather than keep sitting there: 67% of the men and 25% of the women. It is a striking result, and it describes how uncomfortable an unfilled gap can feel, not a flaw in the people involved.
This matters for creativity because the gaps in a day are where a phone easily fits. Queue, lift, kettle, the minute before sleep. Each of those can be undemanding, wandering-friendly time.
That is an observation about how the pieces fit together, not a research finding. The studies did not test phones. But if the helpful ingredient is undemanding time that lets the mind drift, it is worth noticing how often those gaps get filled.
Source: Wilson et al., Science, 2014.
So how do you use boredom without waiting for it?
You cannot summon boredom on demand, and you do not need to. The practical aim is to leave room for the conditions the research points at.
- Start the problem first. Spend a few focused minutes on whatever you are trying to solve, so your mind has something to work on when it drifts.
- Then take an undemanding break. A walk, washing up, folding laundry. Something that needs your hands and not your attention.
- Keep the break free of input. No feed, no podcast, no scroll. The point is that your head has nothing else to do.
- Expect the first minutes to feel uncomfortable. That is common, so try to stay with it for a few minutes before deciding it is not working.
- Write down what comes up. Keep a note nearby. Ideas that arrive during a break are easy to lose, and this takes ten seconds.
None of this needs an app. If you want help holding a gap open, Boredom's Daily Reset is three guided minutes placed in the space where you would usually reach for your phone, and what fills the time afterwards is yours.
The short version
Boredom does not reliably make you creative. What the evidence supports is smaller and more practical: a dull, undemanding stretch can help afterwards, particularly when you have already started on a problem and then let your mind wander.
The studies are a reason to try it rather than a promise. Leaving some empty time in your day is an easy way to see whether it works for you.