I think we need to pay more attention to boredom. Most of us don’t think much about it. It seems like an innocuous state of mind that isn’t necessarily pleasant, but isn’t harmful, either.
I came to a greater appreciation of the power of boredom while listening to a podcast from procrastination researcher, Dr. Timothy Pychyl. He discusses boredom as an averse emotion—a feeling we’d prefer to avoid. I was struck by his use of the strong term “averse” which my dictionary defines with phrases like, “opposed to,” “hostile to,” and “loath to.” But it makes sense. Think about social problems such as vandalism, infidelity, and substance abuse, that probably have a lot to do with boredom. Humans will stir up a whole lot of trouble to avoid being bored!
On the other end of the spectrum, they do a whole lot of procrastinating, too. Although procrastination may seem tame compared to the other problems I mentioned, it can lead to a lot of harm, both for ourselves and those that depend on us.
All too often, I hear people blame procrastination on a lack of motivation, and I think that gets us into trouble. “You would have done this for me by now if I mattered to you,” for example. Procrastination is much more complicated and I know very smart, caring people who procrastinate, despite being intensely, almost painfully, well-motivated.
So the next time we’re beating ourselves up about procrastination and looking for all sorts of sinister and scary demons that could be at fault, maybe we just need to ask ourselves if we’re merely trying to avoid a painfully boring task. If so, how can we make it more interesting? What extra level of stimulation can we add? I use all of the following:
- music or TV in the background
- purposefully make it harder, like use my non-dominant hand
- give myself a limited time and try to play beat-the-clock
- plan an immediate reward for when I finish
- ask someone else to keep me company
What helps you beat the boredom out of those aversive tasks?