Do Nothing
There's a peculiar side effect to doing nothing. Many studies now have been carried out on the effects of boredom, and the indisputable finding is that boredom is not only good for our brains, but is a fundamental aspect of how they function. This in itself is rather interesting and counter-intuitive, but being bored is not quite the same as doing nothing, though they often go hand in hand. Mental space is not solely sufficient for Flow, but it is necessary. The easiest way to open space in our lives is by doing nothing. We signal to the brain that we are ready for a state of Flow by having nothing else on our minds. If you are a creative type, or simply have some projects on the go that you're finding yourself struggling to finish due to lack of motivation, or never feeling like you're in 'the zone', then why not try giving nothing a go? Pick a place and set it up in a way that invites calm, not busyness. My favourite area for this is a little park with some cafes, near where I used to live. On a weekend, I'd head there with a notebook and some dollars for a coffee, and that was the extent of my plan. Crucially, my plan didn't extend beyond my writing time. I planned when I would go to the cafe/park area, but I didn't plan when I would return, or what I would do after returning. I used to think that I was being efficient and effective by 'block scheduling' my time, however I've since discovered that this habit was actually having a subtle yet devastating effect on my creativity. What I found was that, as the brain doesn't intuitively understand time in a chronological sense, my upcoming plans still being a few hours away was irrelevant. It didn't matter if it was barely breakfast time and I wasn't due to be anywhere until lunch - my brain would do its best to subconsciously keep track of my plans by ensuring that I was painfully aware of the passing of time at every moment. Have you even awoken in the morning only minutes before your alarm, only to then discover that you had forgotten to set your alarm entirely? Sure, there are likely plenty of occasions that you've slept in, too. Keeping track of random external plans aren't the brain's highest priority - if it needs rest, It'll make sure to rest first, brunch with the boys be damned. Still, in its attempts to keep your life somewhat on track, it pulls you gently away from what you might be trying to actually achieve. When we are writing, we want to be lost in our stories. We want to lose track of time, to enter that state of Flow, and exist within the fantasy that we are trying to create. Booking that dinner plan a little later, in an attempt to give yourself more writing time in the afternoon, may not actually be as beneficial as it first seems. If your brain is keeping you subtly alert to the passing of time, then it doesn't matter how far into the evening you push dinner - you'll spend the time in a state of waiting for dinner, instead of in a state of daydream and creation. Importantly, starting from nothing doesn't mean that you can't do anything on that given day. In fact, I don't think there has been a single where I didn't end up doing a whole bunch of things, after I had done nothing. My flow states don't tend to last too long, and there's always plenty of time afterwards for lunch, dinner, shopping, walks around the park with the other half, phone calls to family, etc. The key isn't to avoid these things, but simply to avoid scheduling them in. Don't give your brain a quantified data point to track. Tell your brain that there's absolutely nothing going on today, and nothing to worry about. Encourage it to kick back and relax - then go on to do a bunch of stuff anyway, but at a pace that works around your time for creativity. This of course applies to other hobbies/projects, too. Maybe the spot that you've chosen to do nothing in is a workshop in your garage. Maybe, while your mind wanders, your hands will tinker with a design or construction that you had conceived of previously but never had the time to give it any real thought. The point is, that setting out to do nothing always ends in you doing something. The aim is to do nothing in a place only surrounded by things that you would be happy to spend time on - that way, when your brain inevitably switches from boredom mode to curiosity mode, it will willingly reach out to those things you've placed within reach. This completely flips the usual way of things, where the writer is struggling against all odds to force themself to write, whilst their brain is doing its best to find literally anything else to do instead. The brain is extremely efficient. It does what it needs to do to conserve energy. Unfortunately for us, this means that doing something intentionally intensive, such as sitting in a chair for hours and creating a world and a cast of characters and noting all of their interactions, is undesirable to the brain. The other truism, however, is that the brain doesn't like to do nothing. Give it options, and your brain will take the easiest one. Put a half finished novel in the same room as a streaming service, and the novel will take the backseat, every time. Strip all other options away, and the brain will start writing that novel, just to keep itself entertained.
- Aluca Sol
