ATG 35: 4 ways to master the art of Strategic Boredom

When’s the last time you were really bored? If you’re like me, it’s probably the last time you were in the shower. That seems to be the only time when I’m not trying to maximize productivity by multi-tasking or listening to an audiobook or podcast.

Most of us have packed our lives so full of activities that we don’t have a lot of room left for the quiet, often necessary groundswell of creativity. Creativity needs boredom, but there’s a way to be strategic about it. Listen to the episode for four ways you can refill your creative tank by tapping into the power of strategic boredom.

In this episode:
Book Jon to speak at your next event!
Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie
Sign up for Jon's 5 Ideas to Shout About Newsletter
Catch Jon's interview with Greg Sankey, Commissioner of the SEC

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Transcript

Jon Acuff: 0:00

Hey, everyone, and welcome to the All It Takes is a Goal podcast the best place in the entire world, including all of Canada, to learn how to build new thoughts, new actions and new results. I'm your host, Jon Acuff and today, I want to talk about strategic boredom, and a phone call I watched a billionaire take a few years ago, and why I was surprised to get a thank you note recently. That's a lot to cover, I know. But before we jump in, I want to thank today's sponsor, and today's sponsor, is me. That's right. Today's sponsor is me. I've been really surprised at how many people who listen to this podcast have reached out to me about having me speak at their events. I love that. And here's why. Over the last 13 years, I've had the honor to help hundreds of companies like Nissan, Walmart, Microsoft, and Comedy Central at events around the world. And during that time, I've developed three big goals for your event. Number one, I want to slingshot your audience into the best year they've ever had. Whether I'm opening, closing, or somewhere in the middle of the event, I want to launch everyone out of that room with actionable, memorable things that they can apply to their work and lives immediately. Number two, my second goal, I want the sound team engaged and laughing. The sound team has heard it all, they have. And if I can make them laugh and learn along the way, the audience is going to absolutely love the keynote. And number three, my third goal, I want you to get text messages during the keynote. My favorite sentence to hear from you after I speak is, "Jon, my phone was blowing up during your keynote." I'm there to make you look like a rock star not me. If your boss texts you during my speech and compliments you on how well the event is going. Then I know I've done my job, whether it's virtual or live, 10,000 people in an arena, or 15 sales team members on WebEx or zoom or Microsoft Teams. I'd love to help you with your next event. Fill out the quick form at Acuff.me/Speaking to check my availability. That's Acuff, A-C-U-F-F, dot M-E slash speaking. Alright, I want to start today by telling you about a thank you note I was surprised to get recently. A few weeks ago I had Greg Sankey on this podcast. If you haven't heard that episode, you should totally check it out. It was so fun to talk to him. Greg is the SEC Commissioner, commissioner of the college program, not the trades and commissions securities like I wouldn't even know what to ask that person. But Greg is the commissioner for the SEC. And a few weeks ago, Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC. If you're not a football fan, that was massive, massive, massive, probably maybe billion dollar news, it was a huge, huge deal. And during the middle of that there's, you know, all this news about it, it's gigantic. It's probably the biggest thing he's ever negotiated in his career. I got an email. And it was an email from Greg Sankey in the middle of that week. And it was this really kind email and said,"Hey", essentially, "I had so much fun being on your podcast, I don't know what your feedback loop is like. But here's one of the thank you notes that I received from somebody about our episode, and I wanted to pass that on to you." And that really blew me away. I mean, during his busiest week, during his, you know, what would be a stressful week for a lot of people, he took the time to write me a thank you note about being on this podcast. And I said to my wife, Jenny, "Wow, can you can you believe that? I mean, a guy at that level, like somebody at that level in the midst of this huge thing, somebody at that level, writing me a thank you note, like that's crazy." And she said, "No, no, you've got it backwards. He's at that level, because he does stuff like that. That's why he's there." And I thought that was such a smart way to reframe that. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a lot of the successful people that I've been fortunate enough to be around, people that are at different levels than me that are accomplishing the kinds of things I hope to someday accomplish, if you kind of look behind the curtain, they're doing things like that. There's always little things like that, that they're repeating, that they're faithful to, that they're detailed about, that they care about. And it reminded me of a phone call I watched a billionaire once take. So I used to work for this billionaire. He's the only billionaire I spent a lot of time around. I don't want you to get the sense that like I go to the moon some, like I just go out in space. I know all these billionaires, we play racquetball. I got a circle of friends. It's a billionaires club like, No, no, no, no. This is probably 12 years ago. 12 years ago, there was a billionaire in Atlanta. After that I used to work for, and I used to write things for this billionaire and I got to hang out with him a lot. And it was really, really fascinating. And I'll never forget, one day, we're at a football stadium. His company, the company he ran, put on one of the college football championships. What a tie in, by the way. I started with Greg Sankey football and I'm waving a mosaic in this episode already, and we're only like three minutes in. But so we're at this stadium, and it's the day before this College Bowl. Like they sponsor a bowl. It's a huge event, there's hundreds of people running around. He's the CEO of this company, a lot of pressure a lot going on. He goes"Hold on, hold on a second, hold on just one second. I got a phone call." Takes a phone call in the middle of our conversation and comes back. He says, "Hey, sorry about that, um, that was one of the sophomores from the high school Sunday school class I teach. He wanted to know if he could get some tickets to the game." And there are a couple things that I learned in that moment. Number one, he still taught Sunday school. Like he was a billionaire with a b, multiple b's, like a lot of money. I know some thousandaires that are too busy for people. They're like,"Whoa, once you get into that mid-level Kia life, you don't have time for this I'm a thousandaire." He was still making time for people. He was actively teaching Sunday school. The second thing is, that person had his phone number, like his real phone number, not like the Google Voice number, you give people that you're worried might stab you. They had his real phone number. And that made a big, big difference. That person was able to reach out to them. And the third thing is, they felt important enough to reach out. People who think they're not important to you stop bothering you, eventually. People who think you're too busy for them, stop bothering you eventually. And he was helping sophomores. And I love the hutzpah of that kid, by the way, like we're all going to work for that high school sophomore, right? Can you see him sitting around with his friends, he's like, "Oh, we need tickets? Hold on. Let me call a billionaire I know, see if I can get us some seats." I love that. But it was just another great reminder to me that when you get to a certain level, it's not that you start doing those things, then it's usually that those things you've been doing, the little ways that you serve people, the little ways that you reach out, continue to grow you along the path. And I love getting to watch. And I remember stories like that, because I write them down. I tend to keep a lot of different ideas in my journal. I have a idea journal, I write down so many different things. That was a story I wrote down. I wrote down the Greg Sankey story, because I love to capture things like that. And the other day I wrote something down that was for me, but I think it might be for you, too. So try this, try this one on for size. This is something I wrote my journal I wrote, "you have the best ideas in the shower because it's the only place you still allow yourself to be bored." Let me say that again because sometimes I talk so fast, you have the best ideas in the shower ecause it's the only place you till allow yourself to be ored. I wrote that when I found y creative tank, running on mpty. And I realized, you know, can't remember the last time I atched TV without also looking t my phone, or just went on a alk without an audiobook. I u ed to think boredom was my e emy. But now I think it might b my laboratory. Creativity n eds boredom. I think that's t ue. I think that most of us h ve packed our lives so full of s uff that we don't have a lot o room left for the quiet, o ten necessary groundswell of c eativity. I listen to an audiobook, when I go outside to check the mail. I love checking the mail, I approach our mailbox, every time I open it, like there's a present inside for me. That is the level of optimism I have when it comes to mail. Like even if I haven't ordered something like who knows what's gonna be inside of that mail. Like, there could be presents inside that mailbox. And if I'm in my kitchen, and I decide to go walk 50 steps to get our mail. I think "You know what, I should use this time to listen to an audiobook. I can't waste those 48 seconds. Don't want to be alone with just my thoughts for those 50 steps." That's weird, right? I think a lot of us are doing that though. And the worst part is that when I over structure, and over fill my days, I chase creativity right away. I tend to catch my best creative ideas out of the corner of my eye. You know those little squiggly things that float across your vision. You know, if you're kind of looking at the side of your eye, you can see these little squiggly things come across. It's actually cell debris from the vitreous humor of your eye. I clearly Googled that, but I hope it sounded like I knew what I was talking about. If you try to stare at them, you can't catch them. You can't directly look at them because they kind of skirt out of the way. It's only when you lose focus, and you do something else, that they dance back across your field of vision. That's how ideas are for me. Sometimes if I stare at them directly, if I look too hard, they dance away, and I can't capture them. When I'm not looking. When I'm distracted or thinking about something else, they come out and they're easier to see. I think about it like edge creativity, it's creativity that's just on the edge of my vision. And it's on the edge of my life. And it's magical. I love when that happens. But here's the thing. I can't wait for magic. I can't wait for eureka moments. I want to have the kind of life that generates more eureka moments, than average. So I decided to see, could I double or maybe even triple my edge creativity by employing some strategic boredom? Here's what I tried. And I guarantee at least one of these techniques will help you as you think about, okay, how do I add some more deliberate creativity generating boredom back to my life, here are four ways to practice the fine art of strategic boredom. Number one, recognize the value of boredom. One of the reasons that high performers can't stand being bored, is that it feels like worthless, wasted time. And by the way, if you're listening to a podcast about goals, I mean, the name of this podcast is All It Takes is a Goal. That's what I talk about every week is goals. Congratulations, you're high performance. Maybe you didn't even know that, but Congratulations, you're a high performer, you're a high achiever. In order to even engage in boredom, you might have to first change your soundtrack about it. Remember, I wrote a book called Soundtracks about these repetitive thoughts we believe about our lives about ourselves. And maybe, maybe you've got a broken soundtrack that boredom is wrong somehow. Maybe as a kid, you weren't even allowed to tell your parents you were bored. It was associated with complaining or being lazy. Or maybe you had a boss that said, "If you're ever bored, you let me know. And I'll give you some work to do. I'll fix that boredom." So boredom felt like a trap in that situation. So maybe that word, like even in this podcast already, your skin is like, "Oh, stop talking about boredom. We should never be bored. We should always be moving forward. We should always be achieving. This is making me uncomfortable." I get that I do. But I think that we need to recognize the value of boredom. And there's an amazing story in a book that I absolutely love that I think really captures it. So we're gonna, we're gonna have a little bit of a story. Not an hour. I mean, gosh, how much reading would that be? We're gonna have a little like, a smidge of story right now. And it's from the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball. I would put this book in my top 10 books of all time lists, like if I made a list, and I said, "Okay, here are the top 10 books that had the greatest impact on my life." If I could only give you 10 books if you came to my house, and I could only send you home with 10 books, this would be one of the 10 bucks I send you home with is called Orbiting the Giant Hairball. And it's by an author named Gordon MacKenzie. And Gordon spent 30 years working for Hallmark, you know, the people that make cards. He spent 30 years working for Hallmark and he became kind of this creative guru inside this big corporation. And so his theory, the reason it calls the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball, is that with bureaucracy, with big organizations, sometimes it can become like a hairball. It can become really slow moving. And so how do you orbit it? It's close enough to benefit from the power of it, close enough to contribute, but you're not so entangled, that you get stuck. And when I moved from Birmingham, Alabama, to Hudson, Massachusetts, I moved back home and I got a job working for Staples, the office superstore. My boss at the time in Birmingham gave me this book, he said, "Hey, I think you're going to really love this book, I think you're going to need it" because he knew I was going into this big environment where I'd have to be really smart about how to navigate being a creative person inside a big environment, which can be done and can be awesome. But here's what Gordon McKenzie says. And we'll link the book in the show notes, of course. So he has this issue. There's an executive who really doesn't like how much time he feels like the creatives are wasting. He feels like it's not efficient. They're wasting time. They don't create enough. They don't produce enough, whether they're writers, designers, illustrators, artists, whatever. He's like, "you're not creating enough." And so here's this kind of story that Gordon McKenzie tells. Picture in your mind's eye a pasture land of gently rolling hills, painted in the rich greens of early spring. Within the meandering confines of a zigzag split rail fence stands a scattered herd of black and white Holstein dairy cows. The sun is shining, and some of the cows have sought the cool protection of the fields occasional, massive shade trees. Others are clustered idly around a large sun-sparkling pond. Most are quietly eating grass, one regurgitates her cud, and chews it. Outside, the zigzag of the fence stands a rotund gentleman and a $700 power blue pinstripe suit. He's leaning over the fence as best he can. One hand is holding his unbuttoned jacket against his stomach so that the suit's fine cloth will not be soiled by the fence's grimy rails. His other hand is shaking a stern finger at the cows. He shouts, "You slackers get to work or I'll have you butchered." What this man does not understand is that even as he threatens them, that cows are performing the miracle of turning grass into milk. Nor does he understand that his shouting will not cause the cows to produce more milk. If we drew a line to represent a creative occurrence, like so imagine a line in your head, the only portion that would reflect measurable productivity would be a short segment at the end of the line. Imagine the very end of the line. That's where the measurable productivity is. This line segment is the equivalent of the cows time in the barn hooked up to the milking machine. This is when productivity is tangible, when it's measurable. But the earliest larger part of the event when the milk was actually being created, remains invisible. The Invisible portion is equivalent to the time the cow spends out in the pasture land, seemingly idle, but in fact, performing the alchemy of transforming grass into milk. A management obsessed with productivity usually has little patience for the quiet time essential to profound creativity. His dream of dreams is to put the cows on the milking machine 24 hours a day. Crazy. But it's happening in workplaces all over the country. Workers being sucked inside out by corporate milking machines. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't that a fascinating way to think about it? So I think the first thing we need to do if we're going to practice the art of strategic boredom is recognize that sometimes the things we label as boring, the things we label as worthless, the things we label as useless, are actually generating the end result we want. Like we're just being the cows in the field, you don't get the milk at the end without the process at the beginning. So the first thing I'd say number one, recognize the value of boredom. The second tip is under do it. I don't know who originally said the phrase "under do it," but I'll tell you where I first heard that idea. A counselor named Gordon, told my friend named Ben to under do it, and then Ben told me. So that's the chain, the chain of command, if you will, the chain of creation. I tend to over do it. Especially when I'm excited about something, I tend to have two speeds. It's an idea I'm working on right now. Where I either am in neutral or nitro. Like my daughter said to me one day"Dad, you only have two speeds, OCD or no CD," I'm either all in or all out. But sometimes I get in all in mode and I tend to overdo it. So the advice to under do it, that feels revolutionary to me. Now, I will say if you're stuck right now and you're on one of those seasons, where you need some extreme energy and hustle to free yourself, feel free to ignore this tip. Feel free to say "You know what, Jon, this is a season where I've got to sprint," I get that, we all have sprint seasons. So how do we do that? What's a tangible, actionable way we can under do it? Well, one way is to add 25% time to all your personal goals. Not work goals. Most bosses aren't huge fans of you underdoing it, if you came into work and said, Hey, I was gonna get that report done. But this guy named john Aiken said I should under do it. That's not that's not gonna end well for you or for me that your boss isn't gonna listen to this podcast. But I'm talking about with your personal goals, the things that you have control over. If you think it's going to take an hour to do something, give yourself an hour and 15 minutes. Build in some boredom. That's how you get margin, by the way. There's a word we like. We tend to hate the word boredom and love the word margin, but they're related. People always tell me "So busy, so busy, I want more margin in my life. I want more margin." And when I say "Alright, cool, cool. Just add 25% time to everything you're doing. When you estimate something, how long it's going to take you, add 25% more time." And if they can't, then maybe they're doing too much. Maybe they're doing too much. I mean, maybe you want to start with 10%. Try 10% If that's still too much, if you can't add 10% time, you might, not everybody, but some people, you might be adding chaos to your calendar so that you can avoid dealing with some things that are difficult. Chaos is one of our favorite hiding places. So, under do it. Think about "Okay if I was going to add a little time, if I was going to build some margin in, build some boredom in, where in my life in my personal life, could I add 10% time? Could I add 25% time? How could I be smart and actionable about under doing it?" That's the second step. The third, walk with a notebook. Walk with a notebook. This is easily the most Thoreau thing I ever do. Although Thoreau is interesting because I grew up near Walden Pond in Massachusetts. I grew up in New England, I like to say "wicked" as often as I can like "It's wicked cold" and Thoreau wasn't isolated in some far off land communing with nature. He was about a half mile from the railroad in the center of town. He would go into town for lunch, and even throw parties for friends and neighbors. But one of the things that I like to do that makes me feel a little like Thoreau is that sometimes I'll go for a walk with just my notebook, and a pen. No AirPods. No phone. I'll just walk with my notebook. I did this just the other day and my neighbor Susan, I was walking down the street to this trail that's in the back of our neighborhood, we have a river in the back of our neighborhood. And she said,"What do you, what are you doing?" And I held up my bright yellow little notebook and said,"I gotta catch some ideas." Like that's a weird thing to say I agree. But I don't want to miss the treasure that's often hidden in boredom. And there's treasure there. And here's the key. Write down all the ideas, even the boring ones, maybe especially the boring ones. Don't self edit. I think that one form of overthinking which again, I've been studying for the last few years to write this book Soundtracks, one form of overthinking is if you ever self edit before you even write down the idea. Have you ever done that? Like before the idea even makes it from your head to the piece of paper, you self edit, and don't give it light. Like think of all the art that's been lost. Think about the cures for diseases that have been lost. Think of all the hope, the books, the albums, whatever. Like that we lose so much when we self edit before we even put something down on a piece of paper. So I carry this notebook. And I just write down ideas. And I number them, I keep a numbered list. I need to do a whole episode on kind of my creative system because I do a lot of deliberate steps. But in this moment, we're going for quantity, not quality. You'll have time later to make the ideas great. But when you're walking with a notebook, just stop. Write down. "Okay. Oh, wow, that that thought it's on the edge. That's edge creativity." I'll share a few of mine. This is a few ideas I wrote down in my notebook recently. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with them. But they're things that I'm interested in. So idea number 469 is a podcast episode idea where I'm thinking about the only three things you can do on the internet. One, you can create. Two, you can cheer. Or three, you can criticize. Those are the three things you can do on the internet, create, cheer, or criticize, and I think that they each have value and they each have danger. So how do we walk through that? What does it look like? That's that's an idea I wrote down. I clearly love alliteration. I also wrote down an idea from a poultry farmer. My wife had mentioned this idea to me about a poultry farmer talking about rats. He had a fascinating approach to it, where he said, "Okay, you've got to deal with them during the day during the day they're ungainly. They're not meant for daylight. But at night, they're terrifying. If there's a rat above a door jamb. Like that's terrifying. But if you deal with them at the right time, if you deal with them during the day, they're so much easier to deal with. And I thought that's so true of so many issues we deal with. So how can we figure out as a goal to deal with our issues in the day versus at night? Like I'll probably add that to a podcast later on. Another one I wrote down, they're not all like deep, long ones. This one just says "the way way back." I watched this movie that I absolutely love. It's called The Way Way Back. And I thought, you know what, I need to add that to an email someday, like, I have a newsletter. If you're not signed up, you would love it. We'll link it in the show notes. But I love that movie. And I love to recommend things in this newsletter is called Five Ideas to Shout About. So I was like, you know what that might be one down the road that I write about. Idea number 454 just says, "If we're going to make the meal again, let's write down a recipe." And that was me writing an idea about systems like that I need more systems. I reinvent the wheel and everything I do in life versus just coming up with a system. So those are just a few ideas that I came up with and I wrote them down. The reason I'm I'm able to call them up and say "hey, here's an idea" is that I took the time to write it down, and I took the time to go on a walk. And again, you might not get 50 ideas .You might get one, you might get two. But in something simple like that, you'll be shocked how many ideas show up. Over time, these ideas that have maybe been buried for a long time maybe they've been hidden maybe even know you had are going to go, "Hey, hey, I'm on the edge of life. Here's an idea." That's the third one walk with a notebook. The fourth, practice single focus tasks. Practice single focus tasks. How many single focus tasks do you do in your day? How many? I don't know how many I do. Like it shocked me the other day when I realized, well, I don't watch TV without a phone. I miss a lot of things. Like sometimes I don't like to watch shows that need subtitles. And by the way, I love subtitles. That's one of the oldest main things I do. Like I love a subtitle, I really do. But if I'm watching some like show, it's like the Islands of Scotland and there's a lot of subtitles because people have like really thick Scottish accents, I'll miss part of the show, because I'm looking at my phone. So if you said today,"Okay, and my life today, here's how many single focus tasks I do." Maybe it's five. Maybe like me, it's one, it's two, and so I think it's really helpful to practice some single focus tasks. For instance, just drive. Just drive. Like don't listen to the radio. Don't try to catch up on phone calls, just drive. Like roll the windows down. Just drive. Just watch TV. Isn't it funny that our world has changed so much that like in the 80s and 90s, my parents were like, "Hey, you gotta turn off that TV. You're watching too much TV." And now I feel proud when I watch TV without my phone. I'm old enough to remember, you might not be this age, in the 90s. Nike was one of the first companies to do a TV commercial, where they kicked you to a website. It was like "to be continued..." and it kicked you to a website and TV broadcasters, like "This is crazy. Like they're going to we're going to lose viewership because people are going to internet." Now, I never watched TV without a phone. So maybe you just watch TV. Maybe you just read a book. Maybe you just talk to someone. It's funny how often I brag. If we go out to dinner with people, I'll be like,"Jenny, I'm gonna leave my phone at home. Just you know, be fully present." Like what a hero I am. I mean, not all heroes wear capes, but like, just talk to someone. Just go on a walk. Here's a little person one, just go to the bathroom. Like just, like, just go to the bathroom. Just be like, "You know what phone, I love you. I clearly am around you all the time. I need this is just me, like I'm just gonna go to the bathroom." And I'm not saying you have to do this for an hour. Like who wants to drive home for an hour without some music on like, you don't want to be a psychopath. But like 10 minutes, practice single focus tasks. I think boredom is a lost art. I think another phrase for it might be deep thought, might be introspection, might be creativity. Those are wonderful things, but they don't happen accidentally. Those are the four ways you can master strategic boredom. Want a recap, because recaps are fun, right? They're very nice. I love a recap. Number one, recognize the value of boredom. Remember, you're going to get milk at the end. But there's going to be some moments where it's hard to measure the value of that creativity. Number two, under do it. Under do it. Are there things in your life, personal goals, again, I'm not telling you at work to under do it. I hope you crush it at work. Crush all your goals. But are there some goals in your life some parts of your life that you've overfilled? There's just no margin. Number three, walk with a notebook. Go on a notebook walk. Take a small one. I mean, it doesn't have to be like a five star, like three ring binder, like Trapper Keeper, those are the best Trapper Keepers. Walk with a notebook, write down some ideas, aim for quantity, quality. And the last one, practice single focus tasks. Single focus tasks. Do one thing at a time for at least a few minutes. Now I hope you love this episode, and will choose to express that love by writing a review for this podcast. You could say something like "Even though the episode was about strategic boredom, I found the content riveting" that would be, that would be nice. I'd appreciate that. But feel free to write your own. You kind of remix that in any way you want to. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week. And remember, all it takes is a goal.

Producer: 29:33

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.