Idleness and boredom

If you're not too busy

Behavioral New World

April 1, 2025

“All of humanity’s problems stem from [our] inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

--Blaise Pascal

That’s a bold statement, isn’t it? It implies that our inability to be idle or bored leads to mass destruction, and maybe a few lesser evils. But before we jump into an air raid shelter, let’s start by defining the terms at hand.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), idleness is “The state or condition of being idle or unoccupied.” Boredom is “The state of being bored; tedium; ennui.”

I had a junior high teacher years ago who was adamant that one should not define a word in terms of itself. The OED has told us that idleness is the condition of being idle and boredom is the state of being bored. What can I say?

As I see it, boredom and idleness are different phenomena, but there is overlap. One can be idle but not bored, for example, when thinking about a dream vacation. One can be bored but not idle, for example, when working on a ski boot production line (as I once did, and for sure I was bored). One can be both bored and idle, as well as being neither bored nor idle.

Why is this important? Although there are costs associated with idleness and boredom, there are benefits as well. Let’s look at the costs first.

The cost of idleness is that something tangible is not being done. Of course, “getting stuff done” is not the end-all of life, but if idleness keeps us from accomplishing something significant that we want to accomplish, there is a cost. Also, this type of idleness is effectively the same as sloth, which as you know is one of the seven deadly sins.

Boredom in the workplace decreases productivity (link), leading to financial losses on the order of $500 billion per year (link). Some of the loss of productivity is attributable to an increase in errors and even adverse events (e.g., administering the wrong dosage of a medicine). (link)

What about benefits? A common view among creatives is that idleness can allow us to think more freely, broadly, and creatively. As W.R. Bion intriguingly puts it in his book Cogitations, “Inability to tolerate empty space limits the amount of space available.” Specifically, research shows that idleness (including daydreaming!) increases creativity. (link) Idleness can also improve our mental health and make our lives more meaningful. (link)

There are other positives associated with idleness. Ashley Whillans in her book Time Smart states that, “idleness has been shown to be a valuable form of leisure and can increase time affluence” (the feeling that we have plenty of time, the opposite of feeling crunched for time). Who wouldn’t want to be time affluent? Maybe we need to plan idleness vacations?

What stands in the way of us reaping the benefits of idleness? There is a phenomenon called “idleness aversion” (link). In one startling experiment, “….many [participants] preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts.” (link) Blaise Pascal would not be surprised.

So, dear reader, be intentional about having idle time. Put “idle” times on your calendar and honor them. As suggested above, think of idle time as a proper holiday of sorts, not just something you fall into accidentally and unwillingly. “Conscious idleness” might not solve all of humanity’s problems, but it might solve some of yours.