The role of boredom in leadership and life

In his exquisite novel on life in an Irish village, This Is Happiness, Naill Williams describes the men of the village on a Sunday after church: 'To a man they were all skilled in the essential but unsung art of passing the time of day.'¹

The essential but unsung art of passing the time of day. 

I wonder; what picture does that bring to your mind? What emotion is rising in you when you consider that this essential but unsung art could be vital to your life and leadership? 
 

‘Thou shalt not be bored’?

'Thou shalt not be bored' has become one of our culture’s unwritten commandments. We are increasingly aware of the damage that living in a ‘24/7 everything’ world does to us – increasing anxiety and loneliness are well documented. But is there another aspect that we are missing? Our mobile phones are never out of reach, there’s the increasing gamification of all kinds of aspects of life, and the familiar stoop at kids’ sports clubs as parents while away perceived boredom with another bout of scrolling.

I’m as guilty as anyone for that reflective reach for my phone when (I perceive) there’s nothing else going on that needs my attention, but I am increasingly aware that my best ideas, my best thoughts, my best problem solving happens when my mind is allowed to be bored, to pass the time of day.

Turns out, that’s not a surprise.
 

Boredom and Creativity

Jonathan Rogers, in his weekly newsletter on writing and creativity The Habit, wrote recently about the connection between boredom and creativity, saying:

'In short, when we daydream, when we stare blankly out the window, when we perform mindless tasks in which our bodies operate on auto-pilot, our minds start making unexpected connections and solving problems.'²

Ever made that breakthrough on the sermon whilst taking a shower? That’s what he’s talking about. Our bodies are on auto-pilot and all the while our minds are at work, making those unexpected connections. 

Whilst we are likely more than good enough to be able to find distraction in almost anything, we are far worse off with the ubiquity of screens, particularly smartphones. Way back in 2017, research at the University of Texas found that the simple presence of a smartphone in the same room will impair cognitive functioning, even if switched off or turned upside down, i.e. the mere presence of your phone is a distraction for your brain.³
 

Too attached to connectivity?

I wonder whether we are too attached to a culture of connectivity and efficiency when it comes to our leadership in Christian circles. Can you function for an hour without your smartphone? Can you afford the time to stare out of the window whilst in the office or study? Perhaps a better question is, can you afford not to? 

There are many avenues for fruitful exploration here, and some keen applications for our daily living – not least in our attention to God and developing our sense of his presence every moment of our lives, let alone the daily challenges of Christian leadership that require creative solutions and deep thinking. 

I don’t suppose any of this is wholly new to you, it wasn’t to me. But if you’re anything like me, you need to work on moving this from a conceptual theory to a practiced reality. So, to help that, here are a few questions and suggestions in order to help you develop the essential but unsung art of passing the time of day for the sake of your soul and the sake of your leadership.

Daily Boredom

Upon completing a task, give yourself five minutes of boredom. Stand outside. Stare through a window. Refuse the temptation to look at a screen. Refuse the pressure to rush onto the next task. Hold the moment of boredom, not rushing on to the next task.
 

Develop a boredom exercise

Jonathan Rogers writes: 'on days when I find it impossible to write, when no amount of self-cajoling seems to help, I turn off the Internet, turn off my phone, sit at my desk, and say to myself, “Write or don’t write. It doesn’t matter to me. But for the next hour you can’t do anything else.” If I stick to that and do nothing else, usually by the end of the hour I’ve written something. And by then, I’m usually ready to keep writing.'

What would be an equivalent exercise you could develop in your own context?
 

Quiet Day

I encounter folk who are good at keeping a Quiet Day or Retreat Day, but can’t allow themselves to be properly quiet or fully bored, to pass the time of day with the Lord Jesus. Instead, they fill the quiet, the space, the time, the boredom, with yet another sermon, or a worship playlist. There is the right time for these things, but I just wonder whether we default to these things to fill the boredom. I ask because I know that’s my temptation! So, on your next Quiet Day, be actually quiet. Remove yourself from noise. Don’t listen to a sermon, don’t listen to worship music. 
 

January 2026 Lead On Review by Tim Goodall, Leader of Tile Kiln Church, Chelmsford
 

References

1. Williams, Neil, This is Happiness, Bloomsbury, 2019.
2. https://thehabitweekly.substack.com/p/boredom-and-creativity – the whole article is worth reading.
3. https://journalistsresource.org/economics/smartphones-mobile-distracting...