Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is allow your mind to be briefly and deliberately bored. Jamie Spannhake makes the case for healthy, strategic boredom with five tips for reclaiming the lost art of doing nothing.
We often spend our days in a state of constant intellectual engagement. Our work demands it. Reading closely, spotting issues, anticipating arguments, analyzing risk. Legal work rewards the ability to stay mentally “on” for long stretches of time.
Unfortunately, our mental engagement rarely stops when the workday ends. Instead, we may fill every remaining moment with some form of input: podcasts during commutes, news while eating, social media during breaks, and professional reading in the evening. Even downtime becomes another channel for information.
The Problem Lawyers Don’t Realize We Have
The result of our constant mental engagement can be a life with almost no mental white space. What’s missing isn’t just rest. It’s boredom — and we need boredom.
For many of us, boredom feels deeply uncomfortable, almost threatening. An empty stretch of time can trigger the urge to immediately reach for stimulation. But the absence of boredom comes with a cost. Without periods of low stimulation, the brain has fewer opportunities to reset, integrate information, regulate emotion and generate new ideas.
In other words, boredom isn’t wasted time. It’s a biological recovery process. Reintroducing it — even in small ways — can improve creativity, emotional balance, and long-term sustainability in legal work.
5 Tips for Bringing Boredom Back
Here are five ways to begin bringing healthy, strategic boredom back into our lives, and why we need it.
1. Create Input-Free Transitions Between Activities
One of the easiest places to reintroduce boredom is in the spaces between things. Many of us instinctively fill these transitions with stimulation: listening to books while driving, checking email between meetings, watching CLE videos during lunch, or scrolling through news during short breaks.
Instead of filling this time with mental input, experiment with leaving these moments empty. Try:
A commute without audio.
A short walk without headphones.
A few minutes between tasks without checking a screen.
Why this works:
These brief gaps allow the brain to shift out of analytical mode. Neuroscience research suggests that insight and creative problem-solving often occur during low-demand mental states. When the brain isn’t actively processing new information, it starts connecting existing ideas in new ways. Like the epiphany you might have while taking a shower. These “random” solutions that appear in the shower or while walking are not accidents. They are the product of mental downtime that gives the brain time to process and make connections.
2. Reintroduce Repetitive, Low-Stimulation Activities
Many everyday tasks naturally create conditions for boredom: cooking, gardening, folding laundry, washing dishes or taking a walk. But we often overlay these activities with additional stimulation, like music, podcasts or television, making this time high-stimulation instead of low-stimulation.
When you will be engaging in these common, repetitive tasks, occasionally try doing them without adding mental input.
Why this works:
Repetitive physical activities occupy just enough attention to keep the mind lightly engaged while allowing deeper mental processing to occur. It’s like when you used to doodle in school to help you focus on what the teacher was saying. This combination can help the brain integrate information and release accumulated cognitive tension from the day. In other words, simple tasks without extra mental stimulation help the nervous system downshift.
3. Protect Small Pockets of Unscheduled Time (Sometimes the most productive thing a lawyer can do is embrace strategic boredom.)
We are trained to optimize time. In fact, many of us could not function in our careers and lives if we didn’t optimize our time. Our calendars fill quickly, and even personal time can start to look like another productivity task to be checked off the list of things we must accomplish.
Even though we need to optimize our time, try protecting a small block of time each day — perhaps 10 to 15 minutes — that has no assigned purpose. No work. No screens. No planned activity. Just time. At first it may seem like a waste of time, but you may find that once you get used to the “downtime,” you look forward to these “empty” minutes.
Why this works:
When the brain is constantly directed toward goals and tasks, it remains in an effort-driven state. Unstructured time signals that the brain can release that effort, which helps reduce the physiological stress associated with continuous cognitive demand. This shift also supports emotional regulation and helps prevent mental fatigue from accumulating.
4. Notice and Resist the Urge to Fill Silence
One reason boredom feels uncomfortable is that our brains have become accustomed to constant stimulation. When the input stops, the sudden quiet can feel unsettling. The instinct is to immediately fill the gap. Instead of reacting automatically, try noticing the urge to:
Check your phone.
Turn on background noise.
Start consuming information.
Then pause before acting on it.
Why this works:
Over time, constant stimulation trains the brain to expect stimulation. By allowing brief periods without input, the nervous system gradually relearns that silence and stillness are safe states rather than problems to solve. This reduces the discomfort that many of us associate with boredom.
5. Schedule ‘Thinking Walks’
Walking without a specific destination or input can be a very effective way to create “productive” boredom (for those of us who have a hard time spending time not doing something that feels productive). Instead of using the time to listen to something, allow the mind to wander. You may find your best ideas appear during these walks. Even if you don’t have an epiphany or great idea, you’re getting physical exercise and improving your mental health. It’s a win-win!
Why this works:Walking activates the body while reducing cognitive load. This state supports the brain’s “default mode network,” which is associated with reflection, memory consolidation, and creative insight. For people like us, whose work involves complex problem-solving, this kind of mental state can be surprisingly valuable.
The Lost Art of Doing Nothing
We are trained to be “on” constantly: thinking, analyzing and anticipating. That intense intellectual work is essential to our work as successful lawyers. But that doesn’t mean we can never give our brains a break. In fact, that’s the very reason our brains need recovery time.
Boredom is one of the ways this mental recovery happens. Without it, the mind stays in a prolonged state of effort. Over time, that constant engagement can narrow creativity, weaken emotional regulation and accelerate burnout.
Fortunately, reintroducing strategic boredom doesn’t require dramatic lifestyle changes. Small moments of low stimulation can begin restoring the mental space that complex thinking requires. Remember: sometimes the most productive thing a lawyer can do is allow the mind to be briefly and deliberately bored.
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BESTSELLER! THE LAWYER, THE LION & THE LAUNDRY
Join lawyer and certified health coach Jamie Jackson Spannhake in an enlightening journey. Read her bestselling book and learn how to “choose, act and think” in ways that will clarify your desires and set priorities so you can reclaim your time and enjoy your life. Includes exercises.
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