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Think of your creativity like a high-performance garden: If you focus only on the visible harvest (outputs) and never allow the soil to lie fallow (liminal space) or the bees to roam freely (play), the ground eventually becomes depleted. Boredom is the signal that the soil needs replenishing, ensuring that your next season of work is a flourish rather than a struggle. In our current “busyness addiction,” we have come to glorify the hustle, over-indexing on output while neglecting the very well-being that fuels it. We treat leisure and rest like guilty pleasures rather than sacred pauses. Yet the truth of the Imagination Era is this: Our best work often happens when we are not visibly working. To flourish in a world of ubiquitous technology and unprecedented burnout, we must stop grinding and start cultivating what I call the “sexy bits” of productivity: boredom, play, and the magical in-between of liminal space. Boredom: An Invitation to Create We often reprimand ourselves for feeling bored, yet boredom is not a behavior to repress, its an invitation. It serves as a neurological cue to find new sources of stimulation. When we allow ourselves to be bored rather than reach for a digital distraction, we activate the brain’s default mode network (DMN), the “meaning-making” part of the brain that connects dots, finds patterns, and synthesizes information when we are not laser-focused on external tasks. It acts like a “washing machine” for our ideas, taking deeply felt information and making sense of it. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/i-16x9-figure-thinking.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/i-16x9-figure-thinking_0b545c.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cem\u003EWonderRigor Newsletter\u003C\/em\u003E","dek":"Want more insights, tools, and invitations from Dr. Natalie Nixon about applying creativity for meaningful business results and the future of work? Subscribe \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__figure-2D8-2Dthinking-2Dllc.kit.com_sign-2Dup\u0026amp;d=DwMFaQ\u0026amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM\u0026amp;r=xHenyQfyc6YcuCNMBsOvfYGQILM1d1ruredVZikn4HE\u0026amp;m=F383gnrChFhYKPhcpNHI1hY3o58IHIn_LkB5QJDrs3G5Wfft-DcucUO4UEmGO7GZ\u0026amp;s=JlJm7GyKCJvPW0jyrsfTFtinteKDitN13vfPZiuJnP8\u0026amp;e=\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E for the free WonderRigor newsletter at Figure8Thinking.com","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/Figure8Thinking.com","theme":{"bg":"#3b3f46","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#6e8ba6","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91470060,"imageMobileId":91470061,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} By viewing boredom as a trigger for curiosity, we move away from a mechanical “1 + 1 = 2” productivity mindset toward one of cultivation, where we value what is evolving in the dormant, invisible realm. Consider the following sobering insights from neuroscience and workplace research. Mind-wandering is your competitive advantage. While we spend 47% of our waking hours thinking about something other than what we are currently doing, mind-wandering isn’t a distraction. It’s a survival mechanism that, when channeled, aids in aha moments for problem-solving. Daydreaming is scientifically linked to an increase in alpha waves in the brain’s frontal cortex, a pattern directly associated with enhanced divergent thinking and creativity. Yet we’re suppressing it relentlessly. Here’s where it gets urgent: According to a November 2023 Linearity blog post, 80% of people believe that unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth. Yet 75% of respondents in a Thrive My Way study reported being pressured to be “productive” (output-oriented) rather than creative at work. We’re systematically shutting down the very neural pathways that drive innovation. Heres something you could do to carve out time for creativity at work: Institute “thinking hours” in your calendar, protected time (even just 30 minutes daily) where team members are encouraged to step away from their screens with no agenda. A 2021 study by Tork found that 9 out of 10 employees reported being more likely to stay at a company where management encouraged taking breaks. That’s not wellness theater; that’s a retention strategy with a 90% success rate. So position this carved-out time explicitly as creative work, not procrastination. Measure the impact on idea generation in your next sprint or project cycle. The Power of Play and Meta-Cognition To navigate today’s complex systems, we must reintroduce play, which toy designer Brendan Boyle defines simply as “engagement.” The opposite of play isn’t work; the opposite of play is boredom. Integrating play at work, whether through prototyping rough draft mock-ups or gamifying meetings, boosts morale and stimulates critical executive leadership skills like empathy, negotiation, and the ability to improvise. This playful mindset is enhanced by meta-cognition: the practice of thinking about one’s own thinking. By engaging in what I call “backcasting” (reflecting on past experiences to make sense of skills acquired) we build an “inventory of courage.” This self-inquiry allows us to recognize that our pains plus our gains equal our assets, providing the firm foundation needed to leap into the unknown. The data on this is striking, and it challenges everything we think we know about efficiency. That same research by Thrive My Way showed that creativity training delivers a 350% return on engagement. Groups trained in creativity tools and principles generated 350% as many ideasand those ideas were 415% more originalthan those from untrained groups. This isn’t a soft-skill metric. This is innovation measured in the ideas that move your business forward. But we’re facing an engagement crisis. As of 2024, only 20% of employees are engaged, marking the lowest level of employee engagement ever recorded. We’re grinding harder while our teams check out. The correlation is clear: We’ve optimized engagement out of work entirely. You can avert an engagement crisis at your own company by launching a “play audit” in your next strategy session. Identify two nonnegotiable meetings per month that will be redesigned around play. Those could be improv exercises, Lego Serious Play, or physical problem-solving. Track engagement scores and idea quality before and after. You’ll likely find that the most serious strategic challenges get solved when your team stops taking them so seriously. Engaging the Liminal Space Amid Distraction We live in an age of “stolen focus, where the average knowledge worker now switches tasks every 47 seconds. The shift is staggering: In 2004, the average knowledge worker switched tasks every three minutes. That’s a 73% compression of attention span in less than two decades. Research from distraction expert Gloria Mark indicates that we spend approximately 47% of our waking hours tinking about what isn’t currently happening, a type of mind-wandering often linked to unhappiness. This constant task-switching drains cognitive resources and spikes cortisol levels, creating a neurological state designed for crisis response, not creativity. The antidote is to intentionally engage in liminal spacethat transitional “betwixt and between” phase where growth happens under the surface. Liminality can be physical, like a commute, or metaphorical, like the fallow time between project cycles. Instead of filling every gap with a screen, we should embrace restorative ambiguity, where we feel expectant and at peace in the not knowing. The financial toll of ignoring this is substantial, and something we all need to hear. Burnout is an economic crisis masquerading as a personal problem. Workplace stress is not just a personal issue but a massive economic one, costing U.S. industries more than $300 billion annually in absenteeism, turnover, and diminished productivity. Some 71% of knowledge workers reported experiencing burnout at least once in 2020, with burned-out employees taking 60% more sick days and being 2.6 times more likely to seek a different job. Many of us are performing productivity instead of creating it. The pressure to appear busy is pervasive, with 83% of full-time U.S. workers admitting to engaging in “performative work behaviors” (productivity theater) in the past year. Your teams aren’t actually more productive, they’re just better at looking busy while running on fumes. Whether it’s a two-minute daydream break or a weeklong sabbatical, these pauses allow us to unburden the cognitive load on our neocortex. By valuing the dormant times as much as the growth spurts, we transform our work from a series of tasks into a progression of cultivated learning experiences. In this new operating system, rest is not a soft perk, its a fundamental human right and a critical tool for sustainable, innovative leadership. Try mapping your organization’s task-switching velocity. How often are meetings scheduled back-to-back? How many channels are teams expected to monitor? Implement “no-meeting blocks, similar to what Zapier did when it instituted a get stuff done week. These could be two-hour windows weekly where no meetings are scheduled. Explicitly frame these as liminal space where people can complete deep work or simply think. Monitor retention and productivity metrics over a quarter. You’ll likely see both move upward. The Bottom Line We stand at a crossroads. We can continue grinding our teams into burnout while generating incrementally better ideas, or we can cultivate organizations that honor boredom, play, and strategic pause as the foundations of sustainable innovation. The choice sounds simple until you realize it requires us to fundamentally redefine what “productivity” means. The organizations that will outthink their competition in the next five years won’t be the ones that eliminated downtime. They’ll be the ones brave enough to design it in. They’ll be the leaders who understand that creativity isn’t a luxury, it’s infrastructure. And they’ll be the companies that attract and retain the best talent because they respect something far more valuable than productivity theater: the human capacity to flourish. Your move. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/i-16x9-figure-thinking.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/i-16x9-figure-thinking_0b545c.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cem\u003EWonderRigor Newsletter\u003C\/em\u003E","dek":"Want more insights, tools, and invitations from Dr. Natalie Nixon about applying creativity for meaningful business results and the future of work? Subscribe \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__figure-2D8-2Dthinking-2Dllc.kit.com_sign-2Dup\u0026amp;d=DwMFaQ\u0026amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM\u0026amp;r=xHenyQfyc6YcuCNMBsOvfYGQILM1d1ruredVZikn4HE\u0026amp;m=F383gnrChFhYKPhcpNHI1hY3o58IHIn_LkB5QJDrs3G5Wfft-DcucUO4UEmGO7GZ\u0026amp;s=JlJm7GyKCJvPW0jyrsfTFtinteKDitN13vfPZiuJnP8\u0026amp;e=\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E for the free WonderRigor newsletter at Figure8Thinking.com","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/Figure8Thinking.com","theme":{"bg":"#3b3f46","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#6e8ba6","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91470060,"imageMobileId":91470061,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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E-Commerce
If youre a millennial and youre going through your midlife crisis, this post is for you. So begins a viral TikTok video posted last month by comedian Mike Mancusi. Many millennials are now in their forties, with the youngest about to turn 30, putting the generation at the beginning of the unofficial age bracket when midlife crises traditionally hit. But Mancusi argues that the millennial version is a singular experience. For past generations, a midlife crisis followed a familiar blueprint: graduate college, climb the career ladder, get married, have kids, thensomewhere between roughly 40 and 60confront mortality and blow it all up for a red sports car or a younger trophy partner. That is not the case for millennials, many of whom missed those milestones due to economic and social upheaval during their formative years. In fact, according to a 2024 study from mental health platform Thriving Center of Psychology, 81% of millennials polled said they couldnt afford to have a midlife crisis. Can you imagine having a midlife crisis while owning your home, easily paying all your bills, and saving for retirement? one user commented on Mancusis post. Like what? Mancusi suggests theres another reason at play. Other generations’ midlife crisis has been built off of looking forward, he says in the clip. Ours has been built off of looking back. Where midlife crises were once triggered by a sense of fading youth, millennials are reckoning with something else entirely. We look back and go, Wait a minute, I was told to do all these things. I did them, and still I’m not happy, Mancusi explains. And that is a way different crisis. The stability that previous generations found stifling rarely exists in the same way today. The social contract between employees and employers has fractured. Millennials who followed the prescribed path and climbed the ladder are now realizing that the stability and success they were promised is largely a pipe dream. A majority of U.S. workers (60%) dont have a quality job that provides basic financial well-being, safety, and autonomy, among other things, according to Gallup research. These days, 71% of millennial employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work, according to a separate Gallup report, and about 66% of millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, according to a recent Aflac report. The problem for millennials is we listened, one commenter wrote. As another put it: Our crisis isnt mid-life, its existential. Mancusis recommendation for anyone who fears a midlife or existential crisis coming on: You have to find something else to do, he says. I don’t know what you’re into, but you need to find that thing and build it into every single day, because that is what’s going to allow you to move forward in a way that you feel in control of and that you feel passionate about. In other words, instead of a sports car, get a hobby.
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E-Commerce
The “New Tab” page in Chrome is the digital equivalent of a blank stare. A white void. Nothing, and plenty of it. Why are we settling for this? Your browsers start page is the most valuable real estate on your computer. Its the first thing you see! Instead of looking at an empty space, you could be looking at a command center. Here are five Chrome extensions that turn that boring start screen into something actually useful. Momentum If you want your browser to feel less like a software application and more like a high-end wellness retreat, Momentum is the gold standard. Every day, it greets you with a stunning, high-res landscape photo and a simple question about your main focus for the day. Its minimalism that works, keeping a single to-do list and your primary goal front and center so you don’t forget what you actually sat down to do. Bonjourr If Momentum feels a bit too inspirational, Bonjourr is the lightweight, open-source alternative built for speed and clean lines. Its a minimalists dream, featuring transparency, clean fonts, and zero bloat. You can even tweak the CSS if you’re willing to dig into the code a bit, but most people will just appreciate that it loads almost instantly and looks beautiful while offering enough flexibility to use whatever niche search engine theyre currently experimenting with. Presentboard Maybe you dont want a pretty picture; maybe you want data. Presentboard is a hidden gem that treats your New Tab page like a literal dashboard, using a grid-based system where you can drop widgets for Google Calendar events, latest emails, stock tickers, and custom RSS feeds. Its for the person who wants to see their entire digital life at a glance before they even type a single URL. You can resize and move boxes around until the layout is exactly how your brain likes it, turning your browser into a functional workstation rather than just a window to the web. Dashy For those who have 14 apps open just to manage their life, Dashy acts as a “mega-dashboard” that lets you pin functioning widgets directly to your start page. Were talking full integrations where you can check your calendar, scroll a Reddit feed, and manage Todoist tasks without ever leaving the New Tab screen. It even allows for custom profiles, so you can toggle between a “Work Mode” filled with Slack widgets and a “Weekend Mode” dominated by Spotify and news feeds. Its the closest you can get to turning Chrome into its own operating system. This is for serious dashboard connoisseurs: The free version offers basic widgets and integration with popular websites, while the $5-per-month paid version offers unlimited widget access, a side panel, custom website embeds, and more. Tabliss If youre tired of extensions locking the best features behind a monthly subscription, Tabliss is the open-source hero you need. Its completely free, respects your privacy, and offers a massive library of backgrounds from Unsplash and Giphy. This one sits comfortably between beauty and simplicity, offering unique widgets like a “Work Hours” countdown or live sports scores. Its highly modular and even includes a binary clock for the truly dedicated geeks who find reading time normally to be far too easy.
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E-Commerce
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