When did you last stare out of a window with nothing to do? Not waiting for something, not resting between tasks, simply bored?
For most of us, the answer is: a long time ago. Every empty minute can now be filled, so it is. And yet the moments when ideas arrive, the shower, the walk, the long train journey, are exactly those moments when nothing else is asking for attention.
Boredom is uncomfortable for a few minutes. Then something shifts, and the mind starts to wander somewhere interesting. That is where the good ideas have been waiting all along.
