Why You Should Be Doing Nothing
Why You Should Be Doing Nothing
PLUS: The Simple Way To Break A Bad Habit
August 23, 2026
Before we get into this week’s episode, a note. I’ll be practising what I preach and taking a rare hiatus from the newsletter next week, as it will be a public holiday here in the UK. The next edition of Prime Performance will be Sunday, September 6. We’ll be back with a bang.
“I'm a big believer in boredom. Boredom allows one to indulge in curiosity, and out of curiosity comes everything.”
\- Steve Jobs
Last week’s reference to boredom clearly struck a chord. The queries I got around it fell into two camps - those who wanted to understand more about how it could possibly be a good thing and others who realised they couldn’t actually sit with it for any length of time.
I definitely fell into the latter category for a long time - the idea of just doing nothing felt plain wrong. I’d tell myself that I was being unproductive, that I was wasting time. The second I felt boredom encroaching, I was pulling my phone out to read emails or scroll through socials.
It even physically felt deeply uncomfortable - a strong sense that I needed to fill that void as quickly as possible.
What changed? What I learnt from neuroscience about the role boredom plays in our development. Once I understood what boredom can do to the brain, I started seeking out something I’d previously avoided at all costs.
THE PROOF
Steve Jobs practised Zen meditation for decades, long before it was fashionable.
You can make a strong case that meditation is boredom, engineered on purpose, as there’s no external stimulus to reach for.
As Jobs himself said: "If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is."
That's the same restlessness we're talking about this week. Most people feel it build within seconds and take it as proof that sitting with boredom doesn't work for them. Jobs sat through it deliberately, over years, because he'd learned what was on the other side of it.
Jobs explained that once he got through that initial restlessness, his mind would start to calm, and once it did there was room to notice things he’d otherwise have missed. He linked this to sharper intuition and greater clarity.
Colleagues and biographers point to this as part of what shaped his instinct for products - stripping things back and developing an intuition on what would work before the data validated it.
The pursuit of boredom created the conditions for that to happen.
THE SCIENCE
Dr Nancy Andreasen, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa, studied what happens in the brain during what she called "free-floating periods of thought" (and what the rest of us automatically categorise as boredom). It’s essentially the mind left alone, with nothing to focus on.
What she found is that your brain isn’t idle during those periods. Instead it had space to actively connect thoughts and experiences that had nothing obviously to do with each other. She called this REST (Random Episodic Silent Thinking).
It's since been tied to something I’ve talked about before in this newsletter - the Default Mode Network, the system in the brain that switches on when you're not focused on a task. So what you may think of as wasted time can actually be incredibly valuable - in the background, your brain is making connections across things that seem unrelated, helping you solve problems and generate new ideas.
That’s exactly why those moments seem to come out of the blue - you’ve just given them room to surface.
THE APPLICATION
Let’s be clear - I still find sitting with boredom a struggle. There are times when I have to work hard to resist getting on my mobile, or fight the siren call of Netflix.
We live in a distraction economy - everything is wired to grab our attention and keep it, one dopamine hit at a time.
As with developing so many mental skills, it’s all about being intentional about creating the right conditions for it. Environmental design makes a huge difference.
I know that walking in the park works way better for me than staring at a wall, for example.
The other key element is consistency - I’m as disciplined about being bored as I am about my workouts. I invest in it because I know the benefits. I’m intentionally creating the conditions for me to think more clearly and be more creative.
Think about your own experiences - you now know it’s not a coincidence that some of your best breakthroughs will have happened when you’ve been doing the most mundane of tasks.
Now you know the science, try experimenting with boredom. Firstly create the right environment.
Run without music blaring.
Drive without that podcast playing.
Sit somewhere without your phone.
Then apply yourself - when you feel that discomfort, sit with it, in just the same way you would if you had committed to a tough workout. Think like a cognitive athlete, as you really are training your brain.
You’ve probably got two weeks before you have to come out of the blocks hard again for a Q4 sprint.
Go and ‘waste’ some time being bored. What comes from it may just be the insight you’ve been too busy to let surface.
Go well,
J
🔥 LIVE BETTER, LEAD BETTER
The best content I researched this week:
1. It’s definitely the right time for Brené Brown to show up with a podcast on protecting your attention, time and humanity in a world that won’t slow down.
2. The MIT Monk explains how to break a bad habit in 47 seconds. I love the simplicity and practicality of this approach.
3. And I couldn’t sign off this week without urging you all to watch A Beautiful Obsession - the 4-part documentary on Pep Guardiola’s last two seasons as manager of Man City. There is so much there to learn about life and leadership, and I’m compelled to write about it at some point. For now, I’ll leave it to you to form your own opinions. However, one thing I will say is that if you ever needed proof of the power of emotions, this is a perfect case study.
Share this with a fellow leader - we’re stronger together.
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