Bored? 13 Productive activities

A Faint Smile: A fictional short-short story

Thoughts in Class--Episode 5 of AT WORK: a series of fictional short-sho...

Distractions: 14 ways to distract yourself from worry or to spend time when you're bored.

Sometimes, there’s reason for worry and nothing we can do about it, at least for now. Then, distraction may be a good alternative. Perhaps you’ll find something sufficiently compelling in the list below.

Or you find yourself bored, perhaps after work or on the weekend. Sure, if you could motivate yourself, you’d get out and exercise, see a friend, work on your novel, but you’re not motivated—You’re in the no-win of feeling bored yet not energized enough to do much.

Worry and/or boredom too often results in drugs or alcohol. It’s so easy—Just open the bottle or pull out the vape pen and you’re not bored anymore; you're blitzed. And if you want some weed, endless billboards tell us to just click and it will materialize at your door.

What to do? Often in writing self-help advice, I feel the need to issue the disclaimer that there are no, ahem, magic pills, but might any of the ideas in my PsychologyToday.com article today be helpful?

Countering "I'm Bored" Syndrome

You're bored at work, looking up at the clock or thinking about quitting.

Or you're bored in your romantic relationship so you think about breaking up or cheating.

Or your child is bored at school, and so fools around or spaces out.

Those describe a number of my clients. I describe that as "I'm Bored" Syndrome. Perhaps one or more of the suggestions in my PsychologyToday.com article today will help.

Bored? 17 Antidotes to Apathy

Are you finding yourself with some extra time in your week? My PsychologyToday.com article offers 17 antidotes to boredom. HERE is the link.

On Boredom

This morning, a couple of my clients rescheduled last-minute so I found myself with a rare not-busy few hours. Boredom set in instantly.

So I decided to pace the room and see what thoughts emerged. Here's what emanated. Perhaps you might find something of use:

• It's amazing how important being needed and busy is, at least for some people. 
• Relaxing and smelling the roses for more than a little time feels like a waste, not restorative, a waste. Life feels like it should, as much as possible, be about productivity, contribution.
• Busy people contemplating retirement, beware. It may be enticing to envision mornings lingering over a cup of coffee, reading the news, and organizing your living space, but that well may get old. Retirement tends to be like the roach motel: you can check in but you can't check out. 
•  Do I want to write another how-to book? No. I think people get more benefit per hour from reading article-length advice.
•  Do I want to do more volunteer work? No. My seeing pro-bono clients, speaking for free to groups of unemployed people, and significant cash donations feel like enough. 
• I worry that my charitable donations won't do enough good. I like funding unpopular causes that hold promise of making a huge difference, like education for the gifted and understanding the biological basis of intelligence. But my money is merely a drop of water into an ocean. Is there a better use of my money? 
• Is there something new I want to do? No, I just want to do a good job at what I already do: career and personal coaching, writing my USNews.com column and this blog, my radio show, being a good husband, answering all my email, being kind where I can, direct when it's wiser. Yes, that's enough.
• The New York Times reported yesterday that hospitals kill 440,000 people a year. In a few years when all those millions of high-need, low-paying people join the health care rolls thanks to ObamaCare, including the 11 million illegals when they become legal through "comprehensive immigration reform," many more will die--not just from the hospitals being overwhelmed but from lack of access to doctors, MRI machines, operating rooms, etc. Ironic that not only am I subsidizing their health care, I have a greater chance of dying because masses of people came to the U.S. illegally.
• Despite being so disciplined about everything else, why I can I not stop overeating? I really should lose those 20 pounds, dammit.

Those are my musings during today's boring few hours. Care to share yours?