They flipped through the app icons, searching for…something. They opened the Facebook app only to find a “No Internet Connection” banner. More flipping through icon screens followed after a few minutes of staring at the blank WiFi connection list in Settings. Then back to the home screen to stare at the icons for a few minutes. They opened a major news app only to find “Cannot connect to server.” After more staring and flipping of icons, they discovered their email app staring right back at them with a similar message. This sort of pattern continued for nearly 10 minutes before the person tried Facebook one last time — just in case — before resigning themselves to the somber purgatory of Airplane Mode.

In our modern era of near-perpetual connectivity and endless notifications vying for every second of our attention, this sort of desperation is really common (I freely admit finding myself in the same situation in the past). We have the ability to gather information about almost anything in real time from anywhere in the world, and because of this we feel a sense of urgency to know everything instantly — even when the information isn’t actually urgent or even pertinent at all. This sense of urgency is why you’ll find most people reaching into their pockets as they enter a line waiting for basically anything. It’s why you’ll suddenly find yourself unlocking your phone as you sit down on the bus or you’re sitting at a table waiting for your colleague to join you for lunch in two minutes.

Our culture is obsessed with business and Getting Things Done. Boredom isn’t sexy. Boredom is a “waste of time.” We therefore fill every second of our time with things that we convince ourselves are Important®. This mindset extends itself in to the time when we knowingly aren’t “getting things done,” and the [albeit impressive] technology we are surrounded by makes distraction a constant, numbing norm. BuzzFeed, Reddit, mobile games are right at our fingertips. With smart watches becoming more of a thing, we don’t even need to reach in to our pockets anymore.

It’s now hard to feel bored.

However, there are countless benefits of boredom and getting lost in one’s own thoughts — a keener awareness of the world around you and creative brainstorming with your own ideas instead of just consuming others’, to name a few — but the one I’d like to mention here is honing the ability to focus.

In the book Deep Work, author Cal Newport explains that constant distraction can actually harm our ability to focus when we need to; even when that distraction is outside of our working hours. He likens mental performance to athletic performance:

Much in the same way that athletes must take care of their bodies outside of their training sessions, you’ll struggle to achieve the deepest levels of concentration if you spend the rest of your time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom.

You wouldn’t expect to be able to run a marathon after eating a steady diet of ice cream and Juicy Lucies. Why would you expect that after desperately distracting yourself every “boring” moment outside of work, you will suddenly be able to sit down and concentrate deeply, ignoring distractions?

The next time you find yourself waiting — for your food in line, your friend at the cafe, or the plane to hurry up and get there — embrace boredom and allow yourself to get lost in whatever thoughts come to you. You’ll be all the more ready to concentrate in the future. You’ll learn a surprising amount about yourself and the world around you, too.

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I’ve often found most everything in life is a question of balance. From big things (choosing your life hobbies) to smaller things (what are you doing for the next hour?), maintaining balance in life is not only essential to self-contentment but required for technical excellence.

I love technology, software, and the communities that support them.  While I try to keep a healthy separation between work and home, I’m too passionate about what I do to completely evict programming from my mind the moment the clock hits 5 p.m. I might merge pull-requests and read emails after a typical work day.  I talk shop constantly on the weekends and speak at conferences. I check Twitter too often. I do all these things because I’m fortunate enough to make a living doing something that I really enjoy.

If I do nothing but these things for too long, I become a mess. It’s not something I even notice (which is the worst part). I just begin to become this zombie of a person, only caring about getting that low priority bugfix I wrote merged or some issue closed or some CFP submitted. Slowly but surely the road to burnout begins.

But disconnecting and concentrating on other things is my antidote. I’ve developed a huge affinity towards backpacking. I play organized hockey twice a week.  I love burning fires and getting lost in the night sky. And as a former orchestral musician, I enjoy reading some old charts every now and then.

Balance means something different to everyone, and what you do to keep your balance will be different.  If you sit at a computer for work all day, perhaps getting outside and enjoying nature is what you need to feel balanced — but it could be that a solid video gaming session is *your* antidote.

If you work in technology, go do something that uses your hands beyond touching keycaps.  Pour yourself in to it. I think you’ll find that it will give you a balance that makes you all the more concentrated and effective as a technologist when you open up that text editor in the morning.

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