Remember how when you were bored in class, you absentmindedly doodled in your notebook? Or maybe you gazed out the window and saw the shapes of clouds (giraffe! dragon! whale!). Or maybe you came up with a new brilliant jumping technique to beat those mean girls at recess in hopscotch? (My case. And I beat them, too.)

Or maybe you remember a dull summer day when it rained, and the school was out, and it was vacation time, but for some reason you had nothing to do and were bored out of your mind? And how after a while you came up with the most interesting, the most exciting project? (How to steal your brother's socks and fill them with toothpaste just to watch his face in the morning—you know, sweet sibling love...)

Now you're an adult. Now you think you can't allow yourself a period of boredom. Oh, how dare I even talk about it! You're busy, busy, busy. You're so busy, you can barely catch your breath, never mind getting bored!

But it's out of boredom that creativity is born.

So you see, you must allow yourself to get bored, to produce the best art possible.

Schedule free time. Schedule "me-time." Schedule a day a week—yes, you read that right—A WHOLE DAY A WEEK TO DO NOTHING. Mine is every Sunday. Yes, EVERY SUNDAY. 

Of all the years of over-working yourself to exhaustion, don't you think you deserve it? If not now, when? When a brick falls on your head from the sky and you die? By then it'll be too late. You don't know how much time you have left to live, and time is ticking. 

Do nothing. Get bored. Stay with it. Allow yourself bored. And then watch your creativity explode. I guarantee it will.

Illustration by Cuidado Floyd