Why is everything boring?

Have you ever had that moment where you sit down and just don't know what to do? Or rather you find everything you could do boring? Well if you did, you are not alone. Everything is just plain boring - especially if you are of higher intelligence, according to a study at Florida Gulf Coast University( link to study below ). There are many reasons that you could find everything boring and here, you will find personal examples that I have used to overcome this challenge. In my opinion, the core reason for why everything might seem boring - our mobile devices.

Yes, yes, I know I sound like one of those grandparents who blame all of life's problems on your mobile devices but hear me out. Us feeling happy or pleasurable is basically when our brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Simply put, the more dopamine that is released, the more happy we feel and in this day and age, our phones are an infinite dopamine resource. Anytime we feel bored, we immediately take out our phones and open up Instagram, Facebook or YouTube and we satisfy our urge for dopamine as we have not only immediate but also constant access to this source of dopamine ( assuming you have the internet and your phone's not dead ). As a result, everything in comparison falls short in its ability to satisfy our urge for dopamine and becomes, relatively speaking, boring. Another reason that I found myself constantly bored was because I got too comfortable in my comfort zone, which prevented me from taking up anything remotely challenging. I had become concrete in my ways of waking up, watching some Netflix, eating some food, taking a shower and doing this on repeat. It took only a matter of a few days before I "got woke". I realized how boring my life was and it was not how I wanted to spend my future. Hence, I followed a simple set of rules to change this and go to sleep fulfilled and satisfied with my day. Here, I will share with you all the steps I took in order for you to do the same.

1. Track Your Day

The first step to stop feeling bored is to first track how you spend your day. It is crucial to first completely understand the problem before trying to solve it. Therefore, you need to track what you're doing, how long you're doing it and whether it is worth doing. Here is an example of a Saturday that I had tracked during my boring days.

Category - Time spent - worth doing? - specify?

Food - 1.5 hours - yes - Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Entertainment - 11 hours - NO - Instagram, YouTube and Netflix

Hygiene - 30 minutes - yes - Brushing my teeth and showering

From that simple tracking, you could immediately see how absurd these numbers are. Now a days, tracking how long you spend on entertainment becomes extremely convenient on IOS devices because we can track how long we spend on each app as it is now an in built function. It is ironic to see how I spent most of my time on a category which I deem not worthy. A simple analysis of your day from an outsider's perspective can really show you how much you need to change your lifestyle.

2. Analysis and make changes to be made

So, when I first looked at this, I noticed a couple of things I immediately wanted to change. The first thing was to change how much time I spent on entertainment. Believe it or not, I was a bit of a go big or go home kind of person. So, I wanted to the best I can to change these lifestyle choices. So, I deactivated Instagram, deleted Netflix and the YouTube app. If I ever wanted to access these apps, I had to open it through the safari application, which it makes a slightly bigger hassle to open and a bigger barrier to entry, which would hopefully discourage me enough to prevent opening the app - and it worked. The safari experience of Instagram and YouTube was just not enticing enough which caused for me to use it less.

Next thing I wanted to was to spend more time on improving my self. When I mean improve my self, I am referring to educating myself and improving my physical fitness - both of which I had spent absolutely no time on. To do this, I had used some techniques I had learnt from the book, Atomic Habits, such as habit stacking (more on Atomic Habits in another blog post). So after deciding the changes and I wanted, all I had left to do was to implement these changes.

3. Implement and Review

The last step is as crucial as the first two because without reflection, you cannot judge if you are progressing or simply changing your life style ( article on progress vs change publishing soon ). So I tracked my day after implementing these changes and these are the results.

Category - Time spent - worth doing? - specify?

Food - 1.5 hours - yes - Breakfast, lunch and dinner

Entertainment - 15 minutes - yes - Instagram

Reading - 1 hour 20 minutes - yes - "Buy then build"

Skills - 3 hours - yes - digital marketing

Blog - 20 minutes - yes - Writing or researching for a blog post

Meditating - 10 minutes - yes - simple meditation

Programming - 2 hours - yes - Project regarding a website that helps with the donations of Covid-19 supplies in India

Hygiene - 30 minutes - yes - Brushing my teeth and showering

When I first wrote this down, I couldn't account for the missing hours. The total only accounted for 8-9 hours when I usually stay awake for 12 - 14 hours. I regarded this as errors in my simple tracking of time. But it is definitely crazy to see how this list looks far more appealing. I also remember feeling very proud of myself for getting so much done. This also acted as a reminder that it is definitely possible to get so much done in a day. After concluding this is a good day, I decided to prime my environment to allow myself to stick to my habits as long as possible and as consistent as possible (more about this in my Atomic Habits blog post - to be published). In layman terms, by simply making small changes such as keeping your guitar in an open and easy to access location in order to allow yourself to practice it more often. It is certainly easier to practice a guitar that is right beside you than on that is locked somewhere in your basement.

These three steps and very simple but the simple is usually unseen when stuck in the smaller picture. These steps simply takes your attention off the tree and onto the forest. Of course, you should avoid being a perfectionist because that can put too much pressure on your "perfect day", which makes it more unlikely for you to follow through with it. Additionally, the numbers and events you saw here and purely my ideal day and what I managed to make do with and it is completely normal for your day to be completely different. When you start learning things and spending your time more productively, it should remove the boredom that you were once swamped with. Any thoughts on the matter? Feel free to email me and share your experience.

Relation between IQ and boredom - https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/being-lazy-is-a-sign-of-intelligence