A Reboot is Required
The lost art of boredom
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
— Albert Einstein
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A Reboot is Required
My best thinking almost never happens at my desk.
It shows up in the shower, staring at a campfire, or on a long bike ride without earbuds. I’ll even admit standing at the toilet has generated more than a few breakthroughs I’m not prepared to explain.
With my mind free of distraction, a thought surfaces—it might be a connection previously unmade, a new path forward, or an unexpected answer to a question I’d been grappling with.
For a long time, I thought it was the universe providing an answer. The idea just seemed to come to me at the right time.
There’s a better answer, and science has it.
In the late 1990s, neurologist Marcus Raichle was running brain scans, expecting to find that the brain would quiet down during rest. What he found was that certain brain regions actually light up brighter when people aren’t focused on tasks. Rather than idling down, the brain shifts into a different kind of work. Raichle called it the Default Mode Network (DMN) since it seemed to be what the brain does by default when you step back and give it some room.
What happens in that space? The things that matter most.
The Default Mode Network is where we do our deepest creative thinking. It’s where we connect ideas that don’t seem related on the surface and find the human wisdom that AI can’t reach. It’s also where we process emotions, develop empathy, think about the people around us, imagine the future, and ask the bigger questions about who we are and what we’re doing here. Research tells us that the DMN is central to how we develop a sense of purpose in our personal and professional lives.
And right now, most of us aren’t letting our Default Mode Network run.
Every quiet moment has become an invitation to reach for a phone. The line at the coffee shop, the few should-be quiet minutes before sleep, the quick walk at work. As soon as boredom arrives, we jump on our phones and the Default Mode Network is silenced.
That has consequences. The DMN needs idle time to activate; if we are giving the brain a constant stream of external input, the deeper work never happens. We’re constantly consuming … and quietly losing the ability to think for ourselves.
This happened to us slowly without even realizing it. We didn’t see what we were giving away by constantly seeking stimulation. Social media, video games, and our entertainment platforms are engineered to fill the spaces where the brain’s most important work takes place.
The fix doesn’t need to be drastic. You don’t need a retreat, a vow of digital silence, a regimen of forest bathing, or an overhaul of how you live. You need what boredom used to give you for free.
Leave the podcast behind on your next walk. Let the shower be quiet. Sit in the car for an extra two minutes after you park and let your mind go wherever it wants to go. When boredom arrives, sit with it rather than fill it. When you do, be sure to keep something nearby to capture those thoughts and ideas when they arrive, because the Default Mode Network doesn’t hold its deliveries long.
The best ideas I’ve ever had showed up in the quiet. I would bet the same is true for you. Not at the desk, not in the meeting, not mid-scroll, but in the space between. That’s when our brain does exactly what it evolved to do, when given the chance.
You already know how to reboot a frozen computer. Your mind deserves the same courtesy.
“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”
— William S. Burroughs
Connecting this quote to the story. When we stop filling every moment, we create space for the answers we’ve been searching for to find us.
This week’s Chasing Influence tip: You know how to reboot a frozen computer. Your mind might be waiting for you to do the same.