Boredom Isn’t Glamorous

Boredom Isn't Glamorous

“They” say we’re too connected these days. Too scheduled. Too busy. Downtime doesn’t exist. It’s faux pas to say you did nothing on the weekend.

 

Boredom Isn’t Glamorous

 

Boredom Isn't Glamorous

 

I took a 6 day weekend over the Easter long weekend. I had all the ideas about all the things I could have done. Achieved. Ticked off something from my ever growing to do list.

 

But I didn’t. I didn’t log into websites. I didn’t listen to podcasts. I didn’t read the stack of books on my bedside table. I didn’t do anything.

 

To be clear, this wasn’t about no screen time for me. It was about trying to be ok with not achieving anything. About actual downtime.

 

It was crappy. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think it was valuable. But crappy and valuable are not mutually exclusive. I spent a few days trying to resist doing anything. It was too little to get a benefit from downtime.

 

I wake up early and leave the house early during the week. I have a long commute, and parking at Brisbane train stations suck unless you’re there early, so that’s my weekday reality. But that also means I don’t sleep in on weekends. And this began to be my downfall.

 

I pushed my boundaries too far. I tried to stay home all day long, and ended up frustrated and bored. And not the kind of bored where you’ve been distracted and then get a spurt of inspiration. The kind of bored where you can feel each second ticking past, and it’s taking too long. 

 

It made me restless, cranky and unpleasant. 

 

Towards the end of the long weekend, I realised that overall though, I’ve made progress in recent years. I can wake up, take my time cooking, eating, and generally having a slow start to the day. But if I don’t choose something to do (anything!), then as it gets close to lunchtime, I get cranky and restless.

 

That I can spend 4-5 hours at home (and enjoying my home) might not sound like much, but that’s actually massive progress for me. In years past I’d be restless and cranky within an hour of waking up from having “nothing to do”. 

 

In the later few days of my 6 day weekend, I decided to be preemptive about it all and make sure I left the house around 10 or 11am. While that made it less about doing nothing, it helped my mood a great deal. I wasn’t ticking anything off, but I wasn’t cornering myself into a box of unhappy. 

 

I realise that many people might not have the privileged of doing nothing for 6 days. I’m still getting used to the fact I have things like paid public holidays and paid annual leave. It still seems weird to me, even over two years into having a permanent job.

 

However, it is an interesting exercise to try and do nothing. For me, it wasn’t a pretty, Pinterest-worthy image of self care. There was no glamour at all to this. It was a cranky box of frustration which made me feel ever-trapped as each day went on. 

 

I would encourage you to try boredom. But I would also encourage you to realise it may not be glamorous. Not all steps in our life, not all ideas, suggestions and tips for self development are actually without pain.

 

How do you manage boredom?

 

10 Replies to “Boredom Isn’t Glamorous”

  1. I agree! Doing nothing is not as appealing as most of us think it is!

    Ingrid
    http://www.fabulousandfunlife.blogspot.com.au

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      It really isn’t. It was worth trying but yeah… too much downtime is as crappy as too much to do can be!

  2. I havent attempted to do nothing in… forever. I always have a book I need to study or a podcast I want to listen to so I havent given myself the opportunity to do nothing.

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      I listen to a lot of podcasts each week and it was really hard to avoid them!

  3. I’m not good at doing nothing. I have to read, watch or do something otherwise I just get twitchy!

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      It was really hard to avoid podcasts and books. It’s not for me but it was interesting to try it.

  4. I have been feeling snippets of boredom lately which has been quite novel. I think I get cabin fever when the weather isn’t nice. That’s when I find myself spending cash!

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      I get cabin fever all summer when I don’t want to deal with humidity.

  5. So get this!! It has taken me around 3 years since leaving Sydney to retire and no longer work nor have any outside responsibilities to ‘get’ that I can choose how to spend my time.
    I have spent a life-time being the person who is useful, working, helping, sharing, studying, teaching, relating and all that but when it came time to ‘do nothing’ that WAS a challenge.

    Now, I have a routine of sorts which involved getting dressed up reasonably well and going somewhere.. by myself and for myself. I have been doing this now since last Nov and I miss it if I can’t. I also have some things I can dip into at home like art or gardening and maybe I can just scroll on SM. But finally, I am rarely bored. Yay.
    Denyse x

    1. Vanessa Smith says: Reply

      It would be such a big transition from work to retirement and I don’t know why it’s not talked about!

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