“All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.”

–Samuel Johnson

You’ve experienced it before: you’re scrubbing yourself in the shower and a million-dollar idea pops into your head, but by the time you get out it’s gone.

You’re driving down the highway, and your mind starts to wander; pretty soon you’ve concocted in your mind an entire business plan that could make you extremely successful. But alas, you’re driving – you have no way to write it all down.

A bored, quiet mind is a creative mind. Samuel Johnson said it well: “all intellectual improvement arises from leisure.” True leisure is something most of us haven’t experienced in 10 years – before the dawn of the always-on, always-connected smartphone culture.

We don’t know what leisure is anymore; we don’t know how to be bored anymore. Our first instinct when boredom strikes is to pick up the phone and scroll our favorite social media feeds. It preoccupies our minds and rids us of our boredom, but it also shuts off our creativity.

True leisure is allowing yourself to be bored, engaging with your thoughts, letting the mind wander or buzz absently. It’s going for a long walk at the park with no music and no podcasts.

If you want those truly life-changing, million-dollar ideas to come naturally and often, get really and truly bored. Do something on autopilot that puts you into the same mental state as showering or mindless driving.

Give your mind a chance to wander and watch the improvements come.