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WORK TITLE: Bored and Brilliant
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PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.manoushz.com/
CITY: Brooklyn
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.manoushz.com/bio/ * https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoush-zomorodi-33904bb/
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PERSONAL
Married Josh Robin (an NY1 reporter and anchor); children: two.
EDUCATION:Attended Georgetown University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. “Note to Self,” podcast host. Bored and Brilliant founder, 2015. Infomagical founder, 2016. The Privacy Paradox, founder, 2017. Worked formerly as a reporter and producer for BBC News and Thomson Reuters.
AWARDS:New York Press Club award recipient; Alliance for Women in Media, Outstanding Host reward recipient, 2014.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Manoush Zomorodi is a writer and podcast host. She hosts “Note to Self,” a podcast from WNYC Studios, which examines technology in the modern world and how it shapes our lives and identities. “Note to Self” was named Best Tech Podcast by the Academy of Podcasters in 2017.
In 2015, Zomorodi launched Bored and Brilliant, a project intended to help people reconsider the significance of their relationships with their phones and increase productivity. Following Bored and Brilliant, she developed a project called Infomagical, which sought to help people to handle information overload. In 2017 Zomorodi launched The Privacy Paradox, an interactive plan that helps users take control of their digital identity.
Zomorodi grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and attended Georgetown University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, NY1 reporter and anchor Josh Robin, and their two children.
The concept for Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self arose out of Zomorodi’s 2015 social experiment of the same name. Following Zomorodi’s call to listeners to disconnect from their phones for a week, she received 20,000 participants-worth of responses about how the challenge influenced listeners’ abilities to be productive and creative. Zomorodi includes this feedback in the book, along with research from social scientists and psychologists regarding boredom. The culminating product is an “illuminating discussion of boredom’s history as a concept,” wrote a contributor to Publishers Weekly.
In the book Zomordi explains how boredom is key to creativity. When we are performing monotonous tasks or are in an non-stimulating environment, our body goes into autopilot mode, a circumstance that encourages our brain’s synapses to begin firing in new ways. Contrastingly, according to neuroscientists, when we are constantly switching our attention between numerous devices, not only does our ability to form novel, creative thoughts decrease, but our stress levels increase. Resisting the urge to check our devices is evermore difficult, Zomorodi explains, as the engineers that build the platforms are constantly constructing new ways to engage and divide our attention.
Zomorodi also consults social scientists, who explain that in experiments in which individuals that are forced to do a monotonous task before a creative one are much more creative in their approach than are those who are thrown into the task without the boredom-inciting start. In addition to providing scientific reasoning for her argument, Zomorodi provides a list of six steps readers can take to help them disconnect from distraction and plug into boredom, and thus creativity. Amy Scribner in BookPage described the book as “an important reminder that we are not beholden to our devices.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BookPage, September 2017, Amy Scribner, review of Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self.
Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2017, review of Bored and Brilliant.
ONLINE
Dijulius Group, https://thedijuliusgroup.com/ (October 4, 2017) John DiJulius, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/ (December 30, 2017), Dan Schawbel, “How Boredom Can Actually Make You More Successful,” review of Bored and Brilliant.
Freedom Matters, https://freedom.to/ (October 6, 2017), Alexandra Dempsey, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Ladders, https://www.theladders.com/ (October 3, 2017), Monica Torres “This is How Boredom Can Make You Brilliant,” review of Bored and Brilliant.
NPR, https://www.npr.org/ (February 2, 2015), Audie Cornish, “It’s Time To Get Bored—And Brilliant.”
NY Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (September 4, 2017), Roberta E. Winter, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Stacks, http://www.thestacks-books.org/ (September 13, 2017), Emily Thibodeaux, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Utah Coalition for Educational Technology, https://www.ucet.org/ (December 11, 2017) Tricia Jackson, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Value Walk, http://www.valuewalk.com/ (September 14, 2017), Brenda Jubin, review of Bored and Brilliant.
Wired, https://www.wired.com/ (August 30, 2017), Miranda Katz, review of Bored and Brilliant.*
Manoush Zomorodi is a podcast host, author, and relentless examiner of the modern human condition.
As host of Note to Self, the podcast from WNYC Studios, she unpacks the forces shaping our accelerating world and guides listeners through its challenges.
Her book, Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self (St. Martin’s Press; Sept 2017), is based on her 2015 interactive project with tens of thousands of listeners. It empowers the reader to transform their digital anxiety into self-knowledge, autonomy, and action.
Note to Self was named 2017’s Best Tech Podcast by the Academy of Podcasters. Manoush has won numerous awards for her work including four from the New York Press Club. In 2014, the Alliance for Women in Media named her Outstanding Host.
In spare moments, Manoush tweets @manoushz and takes deep cleansing breaths.
Manoush’s goal, as the New York Times wrote, is to “embrace the ridiculousness” of modern life, even when that means downloading dozens of apps to fight the feeling of digital overload (see Lifehacker's profile on her). She often speaks on creativity in the digital age, kids and technology, and non-fiction storytelling...she was also the "Z" in Vice's recent list: "An A-Z of Women Pushing Boundaries in Science and Tech."
In January 2017, Manoush and Note to Self launched The Privacy Paradox, a 5-part plan to help people take back control over their digital identity. Tens of thousands of listeners have completed the project so far, which Fast Company calls Manoush's "challenge to us to stick up for our internet rights."
A year earlier, Manoush convinced over 30,000 people to tackle "information overload" with an interactive project called Infomagical. She and her team used groundbreaking digital engagement techniques to keep participants on track and discover the magic of clear thinking. Listeners left Manoush over 1,700 voicemails during the first week of the project (and she listened to every single one.)
The precursor to Infomagical was Bored and Brilliant. In 2015, this interactive project got people around the globe rethinking their relationship with their phones and jump starting their creativity. Bored and Brilliant was covered by The Economist, AdWeek, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Well+Good, Poynter, and Fast Company, among others.
Manoush has won numerous awards including 4 from the New York Press Club. In 2014, the Alliance for Women in Media named her Outstanding Host. She has appeared on NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, WNBC, and The Dr. Oz Show and contributes to NPR, Quartz, Inc. and Radiolab. When she can, Manoush fills in as host for WNYC shows including The Brian Lehrer Show, The Leonard Lopate Show, and On The Media.
Prior to New York Public Radio, Manoush reported and produced around the world for BBC News and Thomson Reuters. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and went to Georgetown University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, NY1 reporter and anchor Josh Robin, and their two kids.
Bored and Brilliant
Amy Scribner
BookPage.
(Sept. 2017): p26. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
By Manoush Zomorodi
St. Martin's
$26.99, 208 pages, ISBN 9781250124951 Audio, eBook available [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
My name is Amy, and I'm a Candy Crush addict.
Whenever I pick up my phone, those brightly colored, glossy squares beckon, and I can easily squander 30 minutes mindlessly swiping at the screen. It's soothing--and hugely unproductive.
In Bored and Brilliant, Manoush Zomorodi argues that stepping away from technology is not just healthy, it is essential for creativity and productivity. Research shows that people are now shifting their focus every 45 seconds while working online due to interruptions and competing messages. But being constantly tethered to a phone or tablet is no way to treat our brains if we want to foster new ideas.
Zomorodi, who hosts the popular podcast "Note to Self," writes, "Creativity--no matter how you define or apply it--needs a push, and boredom, which allows new and different connections to form in our brain, is a most effective muse." More than 20,000 people around the world signed
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up when Zomorodi launched the Bored and Brilliant Project, a weeklong challenge to get people to disconnect from their gadgets and tune in to their own thoughts. Challenges like going photo- free for a day are all specifically designed to reconnect us with the world.
In this age of information, Zamorodi's book seems revolutionary, almost subversive. Sprinkled liberally with research and insights from some of the leading minds in technology and futurism, Bored and Brilliant is an important reminder that we are not beholden to our devices. As for me, I've deleted the Candy Crush app from my iPhone... for now.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Scribner, Amy. "Bored and Brilliant." BookPage, Sept. 2017, p. 26. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502517433/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=ca90d3cf. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502517433
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Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out
Can Unlock Your Most Productive and
Creative Self
Publishers Weekly.
264.22 (May 29, 2017): p52. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self Manoush Zomorodi. St. Martin's, $26.99 (208p) ISBN 978-1-250-12495-1
Zomorodi, host of the WNYC podcast Note to Self, issues a paradoxically lively treatise on the benefits of boredom. In 2015 she asked her listeners to rethink their relationship to their digital devices, issuing a week-long challenge to reclaim time to "space out" and embrace boredom as a productive state of mind. Feedback from the 20,000 participants in the challenge is featured here, as well as Zomorodi's illuminating discussion of boredom's history as a concept. She cites research by social scientists and psychologists throughout in support of her belief that unplugging, disconnecting, and getting "bored" fosters creativity. Zomorodi outlines a reasonable, easily implemented program for improving "your capacity for boredom," consisisting of seven steps. The first six are: (1) track your digital habits, (2) eschew media while walking or driving, (3) have a day when you don't take any pictures, (4) delete the app you think you can't live without, (5) take a "fakecation" (go to the office but do not reply to electronic messages), and (6) choose one thing in your environment to observe in depth. Step seven consists of advice on putting your newfound sense of boredom to work. Zomorodi's engaging and provocative presentation will appeal to her established fans and also draw new ones. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self."
Publishers Weekly, 29 May 2017, p. 52. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A494500732/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=1cd5b00d. Accessed 14 Jan. 2018.
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It's Time To Get Bored — And Brilliant
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February 2, 20154:15 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Here at All Things Considered, we're challenging ourselves to get less absorbed in our smart phones. You too can join us, too.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Finally, in All Tech today, a reminder - today is the official start of the Bored and Brilliant challenge. We wanted to see what would happen if we gave ourselves more mental downtime or time to be bored. In other words, when we're in an elevator, on the train, waiting for a cab, whenever we're tempted to reach for that smartphone just to kill time, what if we didn't? We're doing this along with our friends at the New Tech City podcast from WNYC. There are apps to download and track your progress. And you can find details and links to sign up at npr.org/alltech.
Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Bored ... And Brilliant? A Challenge To Disconnect From Your Phone
5:47
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January 12, 20154:18 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
NPR Staff
bored and brilliant
Illustration by John Hersey/Courtesy of WNYC
Updated Feb. 2, 2015: The challenge officially starts today. To help you put down the phone, WNYC has made a list of 18 places you can survive without it, social media away messages and compiled a bored (but not boring) reading list, among others. We'll be back next week for a debrief on the experiment — stay tuned.
Hey smartphone owners — when was the last time you were truly bored? Or even had a moment for mental downtime, unattached to a device?
Many of us reflexively grab our phones at the first hint of boredom throughout the day. And indeed a recent study by the research group Flurry found that mobile consumers now spend an average of 2 hours and 57 minutes each day on mobile devices.
Are we packing our minds too full? What might we be losing out on by texting, tweeting and email-checking those moments away?
Manoush Zomorodi, host of the WNYC podcast New Tech City, is digging into that question. She talked with NPR's Audie Cornish about a project the podcast is launching called Bored and Brilliant: The Lost Art Of Spacing Out.
"I kind of realized that I have not been bored since I got a smartphone seven years ago," Zomorodi says.
So the team at New Tech City is asking people to measure their smartphone use with an app called Moment (which we've profiled before — it counts how often you unlock your device and the minutes you spend using it) and then take some conscious steps to limit their digital interactions.
Zomorodi has already used Moment and says she averages 50-100 phone check-ins per day, quite a few of which were devoted to playing a game called TwoDots. (By the way, Zomorodi confirmed with a neuroscientist that playing the game does make you better ... at the game, and not much else.)
Studies suggest that we get our most original ideas when we stop the constant stimulation and let ourselves get bored, Zomorodi says. She points to a study by a U.K. psychologist, Sandi Mann, who asked subjects to do something really boring and then try a creative task.
"And the participants came up with their most novel ideas when they did the most boring task of all — which was reading the phone book," Zomorodi says. "And in fact [Mann] is on a mission to bring back boredom."
How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Smartphone? Let's See
All Tech Considered
How Much Time Do You Spend On Your Smartphone? Let's See
She talked to Mann, who said that when we're bored, we're searching for something to stimulate us.
"We might go off in our heads to try and find that stimulation by our minds wandering, daydreaming and you start thinking a little bit beyond the conscious, a little bit in the subconscious which allows sort of different connections to take place," Mann said.
Zomorodi says studies also show that smartphones impinge on our ability to do "autobiographical planning" or goal setting, which may keep us even more stuck in a rut.
And that's where the Bored and Brilliant project comes in. The challenge will take place the first week of February, but you can sign up now. After tracking your usage, New Tech City will collect stories and provide tips for keeping your phone at bay. We'll check back in with Zomorodi — and you — next month to see how it goes.
(As an experiment, Zomorodi and her producers filmed people walking down the street in New York City and counted the number engaged with a phone in some way. You can watch their video below.)
Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self
Image of Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self
Author(s):
Manoush Zomorodi
Release Date:
September 4, 2017
Publisher/Imprint:
St. Martin's Press
Pages:
208
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Roberta E. Winter
Rediscover the joy of daydreaming and awaken your creative self through Manoush Zomorodi’s guide to unleash from digital demons. Zamorodi uses the book to illustrate her social experiment in getting people to “unhook” from their digital dependencies. She postulates that the plethora of self-imposed distractions has decreased reading comprehension by creating a population of skimmers and nonlinear reading methods. Additionally, a University of California-Irvine lab showed that the more people switch their attention span the greater the stress level. So multitasking is truly a brain draining stress exacerbated by smart phones, computers, games, and other digital menaces.
Focusing on taking pictures of everything actually reduces the ability to remember details of the scene photographed. It turns out creating a mental image is not the same as snapping a pic on your phone. To really remember something, you are better off writing notes, sketching a picture, or just observing.
Today’s focus on site hits or number of hovers creates an endless focus on volume and reduces the emphasis on quality or customer experience. Driving people to a site is not the same as helping them find that which they seek. Just for giggles, tripling the time a customer spends on your site may imply that it is not that accessible. People are more than their digits.
The results on gamers and the impact on brain activity are mixed, but for those who spend inordinate amounts of time playing games are interfering with other life activities, such as getting off the couch and away from the console. Apparently seventy neuroscientists have signed a letter criticizing the brain training industry. One catches a whiff of market manipulation here, as in the Attention Deficit Disorder phenomenon.
Zomorodi does offer insights from participants in her study, with clever ideas to interfere with digital habits. A favorite digital kibosh was a gamer who used a long password, which was stored in parts, in separate physical locations, so it could not easily be discovered.
Theoretically this book is 208 pages, but the content is only 180 pages, so it can be read in one sitting. Even someone with ADD can finish this easy read.
Roberta E. Winter has been a health care consultant with Praevalere Inc. since 1996 and has published a monthly health care column under the trade name healthpolicymaven since 2007. She is the author of Unraveling U.S. Health Care.
This Is Not a Tech Detox
bobmadbob/iStock
We all have that one app that we honestly believe we cannot live without. The dopamine bumps it inspires are just too delicious to give up. Maybe it's your go-to commuting game; maybe it’s your fitness tracker; maybe it’s your budget app. (It’s definitely my budget app.)
Manoush Zomorodi wants you to delete it, anyway. It doesn’t have to be forever—it doesn’t even have to be for more than a few days—but the host of WNYC’s Note to Self wants you to take a step back and ask yourself: "Is this product serving me or hurting me?”
Miranda Katz is an associate editor at Backchannel.
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This unenviable task is part of a series of challenges that Zomorodi first cooked up in early 2015, when Note to Self (where I interned later that year) put out a series of podcast episodes called “Bored and Brilliant.” The week of challenges urged listeners to set aside tech-assisted distractions, refamiliarize themselves with the now-quaint concept of boredom, and welcome the creativity waiting to fill those empty brain spaces. It was a tremendous success—some 20,000 people signed up—and Zomorodi has since turned the podcast challenge into a book by the same name, set to come out September 5.
Bored and Brilliant is not a tech detox. Zomorodi is explicit about that. The problem with going cold turkey on tech is that it’s unsustainable: Just as a crash diet will inevitably be followed by weight gain, unplugging completely won’t prepare you for what to do when you eventually have to plug back in. Zomorodi believes we need to learn to coexist peacefully with our devices. Part psychology tome, part memoir, and part self-help guide, her book is a much-needed reminder that no matter how many notifications fill our lock screens, we don't have to be at our devices’ beck and call.
I spoke with Zomorodi recently about how we can create sustainable, healthy habits with technology, and what “less screen time” looks like in 2017's news cycle.
Miranda Katz: You specifically say that Bored and Brilliant is not a detox. So, what is it?
Manoush Zomorodi: I think that the best example is a story I tell about this camp director, Matt Smith, who runs this camp in rural Pennsylvania where kids are allowed to bring their cell phones. He was looking around and he realized, “The thing about camp is that these kids go away and it’s an on-or-off situation.” They’d go to camp, they’re not allowed to bring their phones, so they’d have a wonderful time—but the minute they would go back into ‘real life,’ they go back to not feeling good about how they are using their technology. [Smith] recognized that our goal as adults is to help kids regulate themselves, learn how to manage their emotions, and set boundaries for themselves. How can we do that if we’re saying when you come [to camp], it’s a different world?
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Why Voice Assistants Will Give You a Headache
Jessi Hempel
Surviving This Summer on the Internet
Katie Hafner
My iPhone Turned Me Into a Squirrel-Chasing Dog
Detox means [the tech] is off for a week. But we have to live with this stuff. So how can we do it in a way that works for us and doesn’t make us feel exhausted, or scatter-brained, or frenzied, or not knowledgeable, or depleted? It’s these constant little self observations. Catching yourself at that moment when you think, “Oh my god, this sunset is so beautiful, I’ve got to take a picture of it for Instagram.” And maybe because you’ve just read [Bored and Brilliant], you think, “That’s the moment where I say no. I’m just going to watch it.”
Bored and Brilliant began as a podcast experiment in 2015. What changed through the process of turning it into a book?
My big mistake, and what I learned the first time around, is that I thought, “I’ll give you the basics to make a change in your life, but only you know what’s right.” But what people told me was they were like, “Well, how will I know if I’ve done it right? How will I know if I’ve succeeded? What if I’m not doing it right?”
I realized that people feel so unmoored or unsure of what to do when it comes to some of their personal digital habits, and how to exist in the world without being connected all the time, that they really wanted very specific directions. They wanted me to be like, “Okay, here is exactly what you are going to do. You are not going to look at your phone or at any technology while you are in transit at all times.” They wanted real parameters. I had to be much more specific in the book and really codify the instructions.
Also, in 2015, this was seen as a little counterculture and a little weird. In just the last two years, this has become a mainstream topic—people questioning their tech habits. People are noticing that they’re feeling distracted, and that they’re unable to focus. I think that it’s become not weird to say, “Put away your phone!”
In this political news climate, it's so easy to feel like you're failing your civic duty by not being constantly connected and up to date on the news. How do you grapple with that?
We do have a responsibility to be up to date and to know what’s going on in our world, but you are not fulfilling your civic duty by reading everything and feeling helpless. We have huge societal issues that need to be solved, from the environment to economic disparity to racial divisions. It’s great if you’re reading up on everything, but we need people to find solutions. The gift of boredom is that it can show people that you have permission to not read. You have permission to try to just do nothing. Because that is the way that we do our best problem solving and come up with original ideas. You are not doing that by refreshing your Twitter feed or the headlines again. The outrage, the anger, and the frustration are real. But then, okay—what are we going to do?
Speaking of Twitter, Bored and Brilliant requires you to delete “that app”—the one you’re most addicted to. Twitter seems like it'd be a popular contender. Do you have data on what was the most addictive app for participants?
Twitter’s been a big one. But since we did the project, the apps that have come up far and away more than they did in 2015 are Snapchat and Instagram. I think that’s the movement toward a more visual, photo-centric way of communicating that we see happening globally. One of the original challenges [in the “Bored and Brilliant” podcast challenge] was “no-photo day.” And in 2015, it was really only the younger people who struggled with that. But I think that one is going to be a bigger deal this time around, because we are moving toward a very visually communicative society.
And if you delete Snapchat and Instagram, there’s no other way to really access them. They’re only on your phone.
Yes. That’s such a good point. And that also is illustrative of why these things are so difficult to put away. They’re with you all the time, and they change the way you experience the world. Somebody was saying to me, “I literally can’t do anything without thinking how would I take a picture of this and put it on Instagram.” It’s almost like we’re living for Instagram.
Manoush Zomorodi's TED Talk, filmed this April.
So how do we actually create good, long-lasting habits when it comes to technology?
I mean, that's the bummer of it, right? I'm not special. This is a constant struggle for me, and I think that's where the “note to self” part comes in. It’s a constant sort of vigilance. It’s a reminder to yourself to listen to the messages that your brain and your body are sending to you and translate that into better behavior with your technology. I think it’s really hard, especially since the technology learns from what you do and the designers and coders then change it to overcome what you’ve done. So yeah, we turn off notifications—but even if you don’t have notifications set up, Snapchat, by rewarding certain behavior, gets you to act a certain way.
You write that your “stomach churns” whenever you read about how tech leaders don’t let their kids use the products they make—Steve Jobs, for instance, famously restricted his kids’ use of gadgets, and you write that it reminds you of “a drug dealer who doesn’t touch the stuff he deals.” How does that color your perception of our relationships with these devices?
What did Steve Jobs know that we don’t? I worry that it’s indicative of the larger view of Silicon Valley, which is, “We know what’s best for you, sheeple.” It makes me nervous. There’s something very Wizard of Oz about it, that they’re orchestrating what everybody else is doing and that doesn’t apply to them.
There’s that thing that everyone says — “It’s not the tech’s fault, it’s people’s fault.” I just don’t buy it. When I was a teenager, I didn’t have the television with me in my pocket everywhere I went. It was an on/off scenario. I'm now trying to make personal choices, like actually paying for services, platforms, or apps that respect my privacy, my data, and my time. And that’s a luxury, I understand that—I can afford to pay for it. But I would like to have control over my information. I do think the only place that is really private right now is your brain.
The “Bored and Brilliant” podcast challenge was the first in a series of challenges where Note to Self sort of deputized its listeners as activists in this fight to reclaim attention and—with the latest project—privacy. Are you finding that those ideas really resonate with listeners?
I think our crew is a little ahead of the curve, and that two years from now, just as we are seeing that people are now concerned about their digital habits and distraction and worried about what is collectively happening to us when it comes to constantly being connected, privacy is finally going to be something that turns into much more of a mainstream issue.
I got this letter the other day from a woman who did “Bored and Brilliant” two years ago. She ended up going through a breakup. She sold her home. She bought a farm. She named it “Make Time,” after “Bored and Brilliant,” and now she has a monthly meetup at her farm where people make time and they put away their phones and she lets them wander the property. She wrote me this beautiful letter on stationery with turquoise ink. It was very touching. She made time to contact me, and making time is the one thing that technologists cannot do. At the end of the day, it's finite, and we’ve got to choose how we spend it.
How Boredom Can Actually Make You More Successful
Dan Schawbel , Contributor
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Manoush Zomorodi
Manoush Zomorodi
Manoush Zomorodi
I spoke to Manoush Zomorodi, author of Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, about how she turned her podcast into a book, why we are confusing being productive with being reactive, the pros and cons of using technology, the future of technology and her best career advice.
Zomorodi is the host and managing editor of Note to Self, “the tech show about being human,” from WNYC Studios. Every week on her podcast, Manoush searches for answers to life’s digital quandaries through experiments and conversations with listeners and experts. She has won numerous awards for her work including four from the New York Press Club. Manoush has won numerous awards including four from the New York Press Club. In 2014, the Alliance for Women in Media named her Outstanding Host. She has appeared on NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, WNBC, and The Dr. Oz Show and contributes to NPR, Quartz, Inc. and Radiolab. When she can, Manoush fills in as host for WNYC shows including The Brian Lehrer Show, The Leonard Lopate Show, and On The Media.
Dan Schawbel: How did you get the original idea to start your podcast and when did you decide to take many of the concepts and turn it into a book?
Manoush Zomorodi: I was covering the blossoming New York tech scene for WNYC (the New York Public Radio station) as a side gig in 2013 when my boss asked if I’d be interested in doing a podcast version. Of course, I said yes! Podcasting was just starting to really take off but it took me a while to understand how different it is to regular broadcast radio. I needed to shed my “reporter-y” voice and recognize that my audience was looking for (and what the intimacy of a podcast could provide) a place to explore how tech was changing everything in their lives, from how they found romance to the work they did. Then, in 2015, I did an interactive project with my listeners and really hit my stride: Bored and Brilliant was a week of challenges designed to help us rethink our smartphone habits, get bored more often, and see if we could ignite our creativity.
I was shocked that 20,000 people signed up and were then willing to experiment with their behavior and report back with data and personal stories. I must admit that I was also surprised that the week was so effective. People came up with new business ideas, solved problems with co-workers, and generally felt more productive. I took what I learned from that amazing week and turned it into a recent TED talk and the book, which includes much more research. It’s thrilling to bring the concepts to a broader audience, especially teachers and managers who use it as part of their curriculum or professional development courses.
Schawbel: In our society, being "bored" is almost looked down upon as there's a constant push to do more, and have more. What is your take on this?
Zomorodi: I think we are confusing being productive with being reactive. So many of us fill every spare moment, whether we’re waiting in line for coffee or for the elevator, with a quick email, Slack update, or tweet. We think of these spare moments as wasted time and opportunities to respond to family, colleagues, or just the headlines. But actually waiting in line and allowing yourself to get bored ignites a network in your brain called the default mode. This is where we can do our most original thinking, problem solving, and future planning. Why not take back those spare moments for deeper thinking about your work and life? Try skipping the extra tweet or text message that you won’t even remember tomorrow.
Schawbel: I've spoken to a lot of young leaders and they say that technology is a "double-edge" sword, there are benefits and drawbacks. How can we ensure that we are using it the right way as to not eliminate our need for deeper human relationships?
Zomorodi: Balancing the pros and cons of technology might be the big personal and societal issue of our time. We love being connected and having access to a global wealth of information but yes, many of us are weary of the constant interruptions, news and social media overload, and privacy issues. I suggest two things: first, when you go to use an app or platform, ask yourself whether that tap is just a reflex or an action that will actually help you at that very moment. Second, encourage yourself and the people around you to get bored more often. Not only can it ignite creativity, boredom can help people be more empathetic and imagine what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. If we all collectively rethink our digital habits and ignite our default modes more often, maybe some of our best brains can find solutions to our country’s vast economic and racial divisions, not to mention environmental problems!
Schawbel: How do you think artificial intelligence, chatbots and robotics will impact the economy and people's lives moving foreword?
Zomorodi: I look at the issue of fake news as an indicator of where some of the jobs will be. So far, the tech companies have underestimated the need for quality-control. Sure, bots and algorithms can churn out headlines, articles, and links but real people are needed to fact-check, imagine potentially hurtful scenarios (I’m thinking of Google’s Photos algorithm that labelled African-Americans as gorillas), and react humanely to the unpredictable. For now, rational, ethical, and empathetic thinking can’t be outsourced to the machines.
Schawbel: What are your top three pieces of career advice?
Zomorodi:
1. Don’t share every idea that pops into your head. Have the patience to keep working and thinking on a concept until you refine and sharpen it into something worth telling people about.
2. Bring your boss more solutions than problems.
3. Just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it. Personal satisfaction will sustain you through bad professional patches. If you are privileged enough to have career options, don’t squander them!
Dan Schawbel is a keynote speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of Promote Yourself and Me 2.0. Subscribe to his free newsletter.
This is how boredom can make you brilliant
Monica Torres
By Monica Torres Oct 3, 2017
In a world where entertainment is just a smartphone away, you’re constantly connected and you never have to be bored. There will always be some new app to tap through, a social media post to like, or a notification to read. But a new book is arguing that we lose key moments for creativity, reflection, and growth when we don’t let our minds space out and wander away from technology.
Manoush Zomorodi, the host and managing editor of WNYC’s Note to Self podcast, is arguing in her new book “Bored and Brilliant,” that we need monotony to be great. She uses her own life as an example, noting that the last great idea she had to host a podcast came when she was bored and “pushing that damn stroller” in the early months of motherhood.
Talking to neuroscientists, Zomorodi learned that there’s a scientific reason why her brain was most creative when she was bored. When we’re bored and doing humdrum administrative tasks, our body goes into autopilot mode and that’s where our brain’s synapses start firing in new ways.
“I learned that in the default mode is when we connect disparate ideas, we solve some of our most nagging problems, and we do something called ‘autobiographical planning.’ This is when we look back at our lives, we take note of the big moments, we create a personal narrative, and then we set goals and we figure out what steps we need to take to reach them,” she said in her TED talk on the topic.
But in a modern, connected workplace, idle time is seen as counterintuitive and multitasking hustling is prized. You can always be writing more emails, clicking open more tabs, and attending more meetings. But that line of thinking goes against science.
In her book, Zomorodi cites neuroscientists who have found that the more we switch our attention, the higher our stress levels go. Worse, the game of attention is rigged against us as our brains compete with engineers, whose success is measured by how much attention we spend on their devices.
“On one side is a human being who’s just trying to get on with her prefrontal cortex, which is a million years old and in charge of regulating attention. That’s up against a thousand engineers on the other side of the screen, whose daily job is to break that and keep you scrolling on the infinite feed,” ex-Google designer Tristan Harris told Zomorodi in her book.
Boredom is where the best ideas are born
Zomorodi’s findings are backed by other studies on the value of daydreaming and boredom. When University of Central Lancashire psychologists forced a group of participants to complete the mind-numbing task of copying numbers out of the phone book, those 15 minutes of monotony paid off in a later creative experiment. It was the bored group that figured out the most uses for a polystyrene cup, not the group that got to do the creative task right away.
“Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be eliminated, but perhaps we should be embracing it in order to enhance our creativity,” the researchers concluded.
So if you want to get more creative, you need to embrace the mind-wandering opportunities boring tasks give you.
Get creative while you sleep
If you want to carry this practice into your sleep, try keeping a dream diary. One study found that people who kept dream diaries got more creative in the daytime, because remembering your weird, abstract subconscious helps you expand your definition of what’s possible.
Proverbs warn against the dangers of idle minds, but what these new case studies show is that boredom is not always the sign of a lazy mind.
At their best, those moments of idle solitude can be the foundation for building new connections in your brain — and one of these connections could even be the start of a great new idea.
Monica Torres
Monica Torres is a reporter for Ladders. She is based in New York City and can be reached at mtorres@theladders.com.
@MoniFierce
Book Reviews
Manoush Zomorodi, Bored And Brilliant [Book Review]
September 14, 2017 10:58 am by Brenda Jubin
Boredom has become a fashionable subject. Henry Alford, in his New York Times (August 10) review of seven books about boredom, suggests that “the ‘boredom boom’ would seem to be a reaction to the short attention spans bred by our computers and smartphones.” Boredom is something we have lost to technology–something, we are told, we should strive to regain. Most authors these days aren’t seeing boredom as “the graveyard of your spirit” but as “a lull before the gorgeous storm.”
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Manoush Zomorodi, Bored And Brilliant 1
Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self by Manoush Zomorodi
Put down your smartphone. The boredom that follows will foster creativity. Or at least that’s the thrust of Manoush Zomorodi’s Bored and Brilliant (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). The author, host of her own weekly radio show and podcast on WNYC, Note to Self, created the Bored and Brilliant Project. It was “a weeklong series of challenges designed to help people detach from their devices and jump-start their creativity.”
If you’re addicted to your gadgets, Zomorodi’s book might help you step back a bit. If, however, you want to understand how having free time can trigger your imagination, you’ll have to turn elsewhere. Similarly, if you want to understand what boredom is in all of its varied manifestations, you’ll need another guide.
Article by Brenda Jubin, Reading The Markets
Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi
September 13, 2017
by Emily Thibodeaux
This new book from Manoush Zomorodi is the result of a long time project. The Note to Self podcast host started the Bored and Brilliant project in 2015 and asked thousands of her listeners to join her as she led different experiments to help reassess our relationship with technology.
Something she discovered after looking back on her early years of motherhood when the only thing that would sooth her newborn was going on long, boring walks. She started to make connections between this time of solidarity where she was seemingly bored but her mind was coming up with all sorts of brilliant ideas. This moment of calm to detach from the chaos is necessary for balance but often times difficult to achieve in a world of constant stimulation. Facebook, instagram, twitter, snapchat, emails, game apps, all readily available on your smartphone means that you can be plugged in in some form or another 24/7. The Bored and Brilliant project challenges you for seven consecutive days to allow your mind to wander and be bored. This book is a cumulation of practical exercises and real life examples that demonstrate how boredom can enhance your ability to dream, wonder, and gain clarity in your work and life.
Thoughts on Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi
Written by Tricia Jackson on December 11, 2017. Posted in #ucet18
“Has your smartphone become your BFF? Do you feel bored when you’re not checking Facebook or Instagram? Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self explains the connection between boredom and original thinking, and explores how we can harness boredom’s hidden benefits to become our most productive selves.” – http://www.manoushz.com/book/
I spend a lot of time driving and have developed the habit of listening to audiobooks through Audible. Our #ucet18 keynote speaker, Manoush Zomordi, has a book out and I added it to my queue. Last month I had the chance to listen and really enjoyed it. Manoush does the narration and is very engaging. Bored and Brilliant helped me re-examine my tech usage and introduced me to a new game, Two Dots.
Basically the book expands on some of the Bored and Brilliant interactive challenge from the Note to Self podcast. This challenge had a different task for each day:
In Your Pocket
Photo Free Day
Delete That App
Take a Fauxcation
One Small Observation
Dream House
The two challenges that really got me thinking were In Your Pocket and Delete That App. The first challenge asks that you keep your phone out of sight any time you are traveling. I started thinking about how often I pull my phone out of my pocket when I’m standing in line, walking in the hall at work or sitting in the car while someone else is driving. Ten years ago that wasn’t even an option. I usually had a book in my hand though. This new trend of ‘wexting’, walking and texting, just looks a little different for me. Back in the day, I would walk and read. I was pretty good at spotting tree limbs and signposts out of the corner of my eye. Now the behavior hasn’t really changed, just the item in my hands. I knew this would be something to ponder over the next month.
This In Your Pocket challenge also led me directly into the Delete That App challenge. The main app I use on my phone is the Kindle app. So, I decided to delete the Kindle app from my phone and tablet. There are still actual books in the world. I also still have every library card I’ve ever been issued. With the Kindle app deleted and all my social media apps moved to the second screen instead of the first, I was ready to spend a day without checking my phone so often. I’ve only had the apps missing/moved for one week. I can already feel a difference in how often I use my phone. The added bonus is now all my nieces and nephews can see me reading again instead of just looking at my phone. They are used to seeing me with books in years past. As I’ve moved more and more of my reading to Kindle it’s hard to tell from across the room that I’m reading a book on my phone rather than scrolling through Facebook. How can I still show kids that reading is important to me? I can read picture books to the younger kids but the teens won’t sit for a story any longer.
Another decision I made as part of this challenge was to purchase a Kindle Paperwhite. This way I can still carry hundreds of books in my hand which makes me feel happy. It also looks completely different from the phone and tablet I already have. This is a visual cue that I am reading a book. This change has already sparked some discussion with the kids on what new device I have, why I bought it and why I decided a change needed to be made. It has also sparked more discussion on why and how we should use our phones.All in all, I enjoyed listening to this book and plan to listen to the podcast episodes, the TED Talk, and check out the new projects; Privacy Paradox and Infomagical. I know there are so many pros and cons with technology and I appreciate the challenging ideas put forth by people who enjoy tech as much as I do.
Tags: #ucet18, keynote, YOUcet
Tricia Jackson
Tricia Jackson has worked for Park City School District since 2005. In July 2013 she moved from Education Technology Specialist to Online Learning Administrator. She has been a member of the Utah Coalition for Educational Technology (UCET) Board since 2008; becoming Past President in 2015. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Spanish at Utah State University. Lesley University awarded her a Master of Technology in Education in the spring of 2011.
Over the last few years, Tricia worked on the Awards, Grants, Program, Conference Credit, and Registration committees for UCET. This work includes: streamlining communication methods, implementing folder structures and naming conventions, using Add-ons in Google Spreadsheets to review and process member submissions to reduce paperwork, continuing refinement of the program creation process via Sched, creating participant and vendor registration forms via BlackPlum, and updating various ucet.org webpages. She was also instrumental in bringing Jay McFarland and Vicki Davis to UCET 2015 as Keynote Speakers. Tricia enjoyed presenting on time management at SUECON 2015 (http://www.ucet.org/back-to-suecon-2015-thoughts/).
Manoush Zomorodi: Unlocking Your Creative Potential with Boredom
October 6, 2017 by Alexandra Dempsey 58
Manoush Zomorodi: Unlocking Your Creative Potential with Boredom
Manoush Zomorodi: Unlocking Your Creative Potential with Boredom
Being bored is the worst, right? It’s a feeling that almost all of us try to avoid – and thanks to our smartphones, it’s a feeling that many of us hardly experience anymore. We check email while in an elevator, scroll through our social media feeds when our friends go to the bathroom, and binge Netflix when we can’t think of anything else to do. But although we’re hardly ever bored with the whole internet constantly at our fingertips, our brain’s are paying a price. According to Manoush Zomorodi’s latest book, Bored and Brilliant, being bored is a crucial part of our brain’s creative and problem-solving processes. By never being bored, we’re actually hurting our ability to think creatively and originally.
Manoush Zomorodi is the host and managing editor of “Note to Self,” “the tech show about being human,” from WNYC Studios. Every week on her podcast, Manoush searches for answers to life’s digital quandaries through experiments and conversations with listeners and experts. She has won numerous awards for her work. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and in spare moments, Manoush tweets from @manoushz and takes deep cleansing breaths.
So this week, we sat down with Manoush to learn a little more about how we can better manage our relationship with tech and why we should all spend a little more of our time being bored.
Firstly, what started it all for you? When did you realize that your relationship with technology was something that needed to be examined, monitored, and even actively sculpted?
I had a moment in 2014 when I was struggling more than usual to come up with original ideas for my podcast. That led me to a quest to pinpoint why it felt like I had sand in my brain! Turns out, looking at my phone, taking in and disseminating information non-stop, disrupts specific brain functions that facilitate original thinking. So, it was time to tweak my daily behavior.
What piece of research regarding boredom, technology, and creativity have you found most astounding?
When we get bored, we ignite a network in our brain called the default mode. Some scientists call it the imagination network, so when our body goes on auto-pilot—folding the laundry, or walking to work—our brain gets busy making connections between disparate ideas, finds solutions to nagging problems, and we do “autobiographical planning”…this is when we look back at what’s happened in our lives, catalog and take note of the big moments. That personal narrative helps us set future goals and plan the steps needed to accomplish them. Important stuff! But you can’t tap that brain power if you’re always tapping a screen.
When/where are you most/least productive and how does this shape your daily routine?
I belong to a silent workspace where I go once a week to do the work that requires uninterrupted thinking…for me, that’s writing.
I’m least productive early in the morning so I reserve that time for working out or answering emails or other “busy” work.
What are your biggest distractors?
My kids! Just kidding. I try not to work when I’m with my kids or parent when I need to be doing work. My brain gets exhausted switching back and forth between roles. It’s not easy though. My tech makes it possible for me to juggle it all.
What are some of the rules, boundaries, etc. regarding technology that you set for yourself to help preserve time for boredom?
EVERYTHING gets put on my To Do list and calendar, including thinking time, so I never waste time trying to figure out what I need to be doing. Reserving and prioritizing is key for me.
What resources/tools have you found most beneficial to your working/creative process?
Online, I use Pocket, ToDoIst, have colored coded shared calendars with my husband and producers. Google Docs and Dropbox keep all my scripts, notes, and presentations organized. IRL, I LOVE Post-It notes and white boards with lots of different colored markers.
What is something you have learned that you wish your younger self knew in regard to staying productive, creative, and focused?
Don’t confuse being responsive with being productive. Telling everyone what you’re working on and thinking doesn’t get the work finished.
What would you recommend as a first step for someone who wants to improve their relationship with technology, or put in another way someone who wants to be more creative/productive?
Believe it or not, a lot of people still have notifications turned on on their phone. Start there. Enjoy the quiet.
What project are you currently most excited about?
The turnout of enthusiastic, thoughtful, and insightful people on my book tour makes me think our culture is about to shift dramatically. The tech honeymoon is over in many ways but in terms of our daily habits, many tell me they’re tired of feeling like their gadgets are taskmasters telling them what to do or pay attention to all day long. They are ready to turn them back into tools that improve their lives!
Bored & Brilliant
October 04, 2017
By: John DiJulius
How Boredom Can Lead To Your Most Brilliant Ideas
I just watched a great TED Talk by Manoush Zomorodi: How Boredom Can Lead To Your Most Brilliant Ideas. Zomorodi explores what happens to our mind when we get bored. Or, more importantly: What happens to us if we never get bored? According to neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists, it turns out that when you get bored, you ignite a network in your brain called the “default mode.” So our body goes on autopilot while we’re folding the laundry or we’re walking to work, but actually that is when our brain gets really busy. We solve some of our most nagging problems, and we do something called “autobiographical planning.” This is when we look back at our lives, take note of the big moments, create a personal narrative, and then set goals and figure out what steps we need to take to reach them.
The “Bored and Brilliant” Challenge
Zomorodi actually held a “Bored and Brilliant” challenge. Her results and feedback from the thousands of people who accepted the challenge was incredible, especially from the younger generation. “Some of them told me that they didn’t recognize some of the emotions that they felt during challenge week, because, if you think about it, if you have never known life without connectivity, you may never have experienced boredom,” shares Zomorodi.
Researchers at USC studied teenagers who are on social media while they’re talking to their friends or doing homework. They found that two years down the road, these teenagers were less creative and imaginative about their own personal futures and about solving societal problems, like violence in their neighborhoods. And we really need this next generation to be able to focus on some big problems: climate change, economic disparity, and massive cultural differences. No wonder CEOs in an IBM survey identified creativity as the number one leadership competency.
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A decrease in creativity is dangerous in our lives, professionally and personally. Limit your time on your smart phones, tablets, and social media outlets. Make a commitment. Schedule down time on your calendar at least three times a day; early morning, middle of the afternoon, and before bed. We need to protect our peaceful idle time, to let our minds rest, reset, be reinvigorated, rejuvenated, and just daydream. Boredom truly can lead to brilliance.
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Category: World-Class Leadership
John DiJulius
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About The Author
John DiJulius
John R. DiJulius is a best-selling author, consultant, keynote speaker and President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on Customer experience trends and best practices.