How we’ve lost our ability to be bored — and why bringing back, and even *embracing* boredom, can improve all of our lives.

Being bored is not just useful but essential: a catalyst for creativity, productivity and even altruism. Staring out of the window or aimlessly dawdling, it reveals, is not a waste of time, but valuable time out in this always-on, hyper-connected world.

Written by journalist Josh Snape, this insightful and accessible analysis urges readers to slow down, switch off and zone out. The idea that simply doing nothing is often better than doing something is backed up by experts who study boredom from social, clinical and cognitive perspectives, including eminent scientists and psychologists

Amidst the frantic speed of the modern world, a relaxed mind can be a springboard for ideas and problem-solving. Long walks kick-start great novels and leisurely showers produce lightbulb moments. Be More Bored explores the potential of the brain’s ‘default mode network’, which becomes active when the mind is at rest, and provides practical examples and first-hand anecdotes. Journalist and psychotherapist Phillipa Perry, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Booker-winning novelist Anne Enright and other creatives, from advertising executives to games designers, reveal how this unconscious processing of ideas is an indispensable mental tool.

Embracing boredom is not just accepting boredom when it happens, but actively seeking it out. Snape ruminates on mindfulness and meditation, jumps into floatation tanks and meets up with Tibetan monks. He also encourages intentional boredom – setting aside time where you are offline, disengaged and simply unable to do anything other than ponder, muse and daydream.

Be More Bored is a game-changer: a manifesto for doing not more but less; a call-out for inaction.