Scott Adams: The Heady Thrill of Having Nothing to Do

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486412642177904.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

by mattjaynes • 15 years ago

198 48 15 years ago

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jsherry• 15 years ago

"My period of greatest creative output was during my corporate years, when every meeting felt like a play date with coma patients."

Love that line.

tejaswiy• 15 years ago

I agree with this. Creative bursts usually come at midnight when I force myself to switch everything off and go sleep or when I'm stuck on an aeroplane with nothing to do at all than sit and stare out of the window.

I however, won't miss staring at people while in line at chipotle. I also disagree with the sentiment that innovation itself is dead because of readily available distraction.

icebraining• 15 years ago

http://so12.edublogs.org/files/2011/03/bill1-2ecvk9b.gif

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

I'm not too sure I agree with the specific notion that availability of distraction destroys creativity. Here's my (off the top of my head) take on creativity:

Problems 1: You come up with an idea, and tell yourself, "that's a good idea, I should remember that!" and then you don't remember, or you tell yourself that you need to focus on fixing these bugs at work, or on whatever other task is at hand.

Problem 2: Your mental energy is sapped by whatever you're currently doing. It's like the classic Stephen King quote about how working simple manual labor (laundry) was fantastic for creativity and writing.

The solution to problem one is to always have a means of taking notes, one which you will definitely revisit. This frees you from wanting to focus off-task when you need to be on-task, and it allows you to revisit and refine your thoughts. Problem two is tougher. Find a job doing exactly what stimulates your creativity. Let's face it, though, that's not as easy as blogs and Dice make it out to be. The only advice I can give is to quit your job and do exactly what you feel like doing until you've found a problem you want to solve, but that's not a very constructive path.

I've found that by simply doing whatever I want each day, I'm exposed to way more interesting problems that I want to solve. I listen to things like podcast while performing tedious, manual labor (cycling, weight lifting, cleaning, wrenching, etc), and I feel like it's both easier to get the tasks done, and I'm left with a feeling of better variety of mental exposure. I'm currently experiencing a much more creative/inventive period in my life than I have in years.

mattgreenrocks• 15 years ago

What podcasts do you recommend?

olliesaunders3• 15 years ago

The solution to problem one is to always have a means of taking notes, one which you will definitely revisit. This frees you from wanting to focus off-task when you need to be on-task, and it allows you to revisit and refine your thoughts

This is exactly David Allen’s GTD mantra. But a number of creativity books I’ve looked at talk about the importance of “giving yourself permission” to have ideas, part of which means having the means to record them wherever they happen. I found the number of ideas I have started to increase once I got into this.

georgieporgie2• 15 years ago

Interesting, and that's probably where I heard of it, through second-hand sources. I think it's very similar to (what I understand to be) a fundamental concept of meditation: that when a thought pops into your head, you acknowledge it, and put it aside. The notebook thing seems to be the same concept on a different level.

6ren• 15 years ago

I think a big aspect of creativity is finding new connections between things, applying a technique to a different domain, and combining ideas.

I think you need alternation, between stimulation and boredom. And the stimulation needs to have interesting ideas in it. Though, depending on the type of person you are, you won't find it novel (and therefore not stimulating) unless it does have new and interesting ideas in it.

But to be fair, I find my mind does tend to wander to creative problem solving if it's not occupied. i.e. boredom does help me. I think it might be that working out new ideas is hard work, and it's easier to be distracted.

j-kidd• 15 years ago

This is where coffee comes in. It kicks your brain up a notch, such that when you are busy reading blog posts, listening to podcasts, and chatting with your pals, you still have some spare brain cells left to feel bored.

chubot• 15 years ago

There is some degree of truth to this, but it is balanced out by the fact that Internet gives you so many more ideas to combine. Creativity is essentially combining different ideas, and technology puts at your dispisal a constant stream of new ideas. You can follow in great depth the ones that tickle you.

The majority of people will always passively consume. That's nothing new; it's possibly a lot more visible now with a lot of content-free blogs/twitter/etc.

But for those so inclined, technology helps a lot. For one example, look at how many free programming languages are available for use now -- things that you can build billion dollar businesses on. It wasn't like that in 1985. And a pretty promiscuous combination of ideas that was required for this to come into being. Or just consider open source in general.

terhechte• 15 years ago

I guess there is some truth to this. I usually have my best ideas while I'm jogging / walking. See, I've been jogging the same route (with minor variations) for almost 4 years now. Around 20 minutes after I started walking I can feel ideas pop up in my head. I've had some of my best ideas of the past years while jogging.

So that even helps combining two useful things for me: I process the happenings of the day, and I stay in form.

Vivtek4• 15 years ago

There's boredom, then there's freedom from distraction.

I'm free from distraction when walking the dog in the woods by myself. I'm bored when stuck in line at Meijer's behind the guy whose credit card expired yesterday. The latter is excruciating and exhausting.

But aside from that: Scott Adams has a weird way of mixing some decent insight, like his thesis here, with some really inane stuff that sounds like late-night college freshman bullshitting. I mean really: "You might see the best-seller lists dominated by fiction "factories" in which ghostwriters churn out familiar-feeling work under the brands of famous authors. Got it." Has he never heard of Charles Dickens? Probably not, actually. But those fiction factories have existed since books got cheap enough for the mass market.

Not saying he's wrong - I guess I'm saying he's got nobody in his life willing to shoot down his pretty arguments before they hit the Wall Street freaking Journal, and that's a little sad.

gruseom2• 15 years ago

Dickens wrote every word of his own stuff. And walked something like 20 miles a day, too -- often all the way out of London and all the way back. There was no "fiction factory" about him, just prodigious genius, and a whole lot of the best English ever written.

Adams is talking about stuff like this (chosen at random): http://www.amazon.com/Against-All-Enemies-Tom-Clancy/dp/0399.... Note the critical little "with" on the cover.

Dickens' success as a bestseller proves Adams' point, not yours. If you want an example of yours, pick Stratemeyer.

Vivtek4• 15 years ago

My God, you're right! I hate it when my memory doesn't match reality. Pretend I said "Alexandre Dumas", then.

perfunctory• 15 years ago

> he's got nobody in his life willing to shoot down his pretty arguments before they hit the Wall Street freaking Journal

what about wsj's editors?

Vivtek4• 15 years ago

They're selling his name, not his content.

stcredzero• 15 years ago

In Larry Niven's A World Out of Time (1976), a human mind is uploaded to a computer, and finds himself running an interstellar spacecraft. Since he has to be awake for centuries, he comes up with a trick. He writes a virus to erase all of his memories of boredom, so the next time he becomes bored and realizes he's experiencing a heretofore "new" emotion, he feels novelty. Then somehow, he learns of the trick and does it to himself again.

I guess that once we're uploaded, we could use something like this to "solve" the reddit and HN repost issue.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

Once we're uploaded, we're no longer us.

reinhardt3• 15 years ago

We have not won the war on boredom. At best we have won the war on idleness, which is only a lite version of it. If anything, these kill-time gadgets exacerbate the deep boredom problem, what Pessoa calls tedium:

Tedium is not the disease of being bored because there’s nothing to do, but the more serious disease of feeling that there’s nothing worth doing. This means that the more there is to do, the more tedium one will feel.

I can totally relate to this quote and attest to the ineffectiveness or even negative effect most tech toys have in alleviating my chronic diminished motivation and under-functioning reward system.

hugh3• 15 years ago

That's well put. The internet provides us with a vast pool of borderline-interesting activities, and almost nothing of actual interest.

This comment was borderline-interesting for me to write. I hope it was borderline-interesting for you to read as well.

reinhardt3• 15 years ago

Thank you, your comment was borderline-interesting to upvote.

nazgulnarsil• 15 years ago

"and almost nothing of actual interest."

I disagree strongly. More and more AAA content in accessible form is coming online every month. People are just apathetic because they don't value things they can obtain for free.

AltIvan• 15 years ago

Why people gave you upvotes? You clearly stated that your reward system is not working.

reinhardt3• 15 years ago

Incidentally, another article on the topic just came in: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/the-thrill-...

Vivtek4• 15 years ago

I have never felt tedium.

My usual recommendation is to have a child. You will instantaneously have a great number of things you don't have time for, which are all clearly worth doing. Zero tedium!

benihana• 15 years ago

Great recommendation. Bored with your life? HAVE KIDS! Listen to this man.

olliesaunders3• 15 years ago

One source of single mothers is the young women that want children because they feel that no-one loves them but a child would. Can’t remember where I heard this.

mceachen• 15 years ago

There was a comment on the site about this article being a "rip off" of Huxley (once again, wikipedia delivers in spades): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Comparisons_wit...

"Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism."

lunaru• 15 years ago

Just want to add that A Brave New World is one of those books that doesn't get as much attention as its counterpart 1984. The latter seems to have become a talking point, a reduced to a symbol thrown around in arguments.

notahacker• 15 years ago

One of the latter's more enduring motifs actually ended up as the title for the type of TV show Orwell coined the word prolefeed for...

Brave New World is probably actually the more relevant book to today's hedonistic, rampantly consumerist world. Even if the slightly tongue-in-cheek references to 'his Fordship' seem a little quaint we certainly haven't lost our tendency to worship distantly superrich media personalities. Then again, we're probably too busy checking our Facebook feeds to go back and read it

cowboyhero• 15 years ago

Also, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness.

Postman references Huxley/Orwell in the introduction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

gavingmiller• 15 years ago

Postman's book is fantastic. I read the book > 10 years ago and still talk about it. One of his points that stuck with me was that if television were actually entertaining we would never be able to leave it.

Also, have a look at some of his more famous quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/41963.Neil_Postman

superuser2• 15 years ago

I went to see Ira Glass speak about creativity and storytelling. I was a beautifully crafted speech, and one rhetorical nugget I remember clearly was this:

"Ideas come from other ideas."

He argued that we cannot be creative in isolation, but that if we surround ourselves with high-quality ideas and stories, we are more likely to produce them ourselves. That is what he sees (and strives to create) in public radio.

timinman• 15 years ago

I think this is applicable:

"when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow exclude people. so create." -Why The Lucky Stiff

resdirector3• 15 years ago

There's a startup in this, somewhere.

Has anyone tried the YC startup http://www.rescuetime.com/? (I've been meaning to try it myself, but they want my credit card to begin.)

Jd• 15 years ago

Yep, I didn't find Rescuetime very helpful. I tend to think employee monitoring is evil and if I am personally not engaged in the work I am doing I would rather find engaging work than look at the time I waste on other things (HN, for example).

A proposed startup: web interface that would block all devices totally (or simply from the internet) for certain period of time. For instance, you could click a button when you get home from work that says, "I'm done for the evening" that removes all electronic distractions until some set time in the morning.

Possibilities exist on different devices for this, but nothing that ties them all together. Of course, it may not be that popular since not all that many people that are addicted to their devices treat it as a serious problem to be remedied (HN addicts included).

resdirector3• 15 years ago

Yup, if you (or someone) built that, I'd use it.

Of course, it may not be that popular since not all that many people that are addicted to their devices

It's a growing problem. Every other day I see a mainstream news article about device/app addiction.

blackboxxx• 15 years ago

When there are so many people in this world in need of a friendly visit, or assistance in some way, shape or form, doing nothing is irresponsible.

Bottom line. HN pretty much qualifies for doing nothing. We should all abandon HN immediately and forever and get on with our lives.

I dare you.

twidlit• 15 years ago

My best hack around this is commuting instead of driving a car and doing something mindless like cleaning the house or laundry after being stumped by a problem. Its in these times that ideas & solutions get formed or destroyed.

justinhj• 15 years ago

"To be fair, economics is to blame for some of the decrease in creativity. A movie studio can make more money with a sequel than a gamble on something creative."

More specifically people want to know that they will enjoy something so they buy a brand that they're familiar with, even if it is repetitive.

PanosJee• 15 years ago

It's very interesting to analyze the greek word for employment, working which is απασχόληση (apasholisi).

It comes from two words απα - σχόληση (apa-sholisi). The first part of the word απα (apa) is used when we want to give the opposite meaning so απασχόληση (apasxolisi) is the opposite or the lack of σχόληση (sholisi).

So that does this word means? It comes from the verb σχολάζω, sholazo which means study. For the greeks working was inferior to cultivating your mind, going to the gym or the theater. Studying for them was whatever had to do with the culture of the mind or the body. So employment or working prevented you from studying.

Aristotle has said: - "Ασχολούμεθα ίνα σχολάζομεν" (asholoumetha ina sholazomen) which means that we are working in order to be able to study. More or less he said that we work in order to have the means to improve our body, soul and mind and not just work to live.

That's what the Greek said. (not the modern ones of course :) )

zwieback• 15 years ago

My experience with my kids is that boredom definitely breeds creativity. We don't allow unlimited TV or computer time and when they are forced to be "bored" a short burst of complaint is usually followed by creative play. When they complain they are bored they hear Grandma's maxim: "Only the boring get bored."

However, I think it's slightly different for adults. Creative play is not something we're good at. I often find myself picking up some menial chore around the house when I feel I have nothing to do instead of doing something creative.

My best inspirations of creativity usually come when I'm thrown into some new, unanticipated situation by some outside force. Let's say I go to the DMV and wait in line and strike up a conversation with the next unlucky customer - all of a sudden I learn something totally new and unexpected that causes me to try or do something I have never done before.

In that sense our electronic gadgets are awful because they allow us to get immersed in completely self-selected entertainment, reinforcing existing feedback channels. Maybe it would be better to be receive only one channel on your TV and be forced to sit through a rerun of a Lawrence Welk episode (preferably with a lot of Polka.)

Scott Adams: The Heady Thrill of Having Nothing to Do

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