I haven’t been bored for years now. At least not for very long. There’s simply always enough tasks to do, projects to tackle, fun things to explore or places to visit in my life. I’m experiencing situations that bring  more and more interesting people into my life every day and I’m constantly generating more ideas than I can ever handle. Let me explain why you should, too.

(photo credit goes to Luis Fabres)

According to teachings of today’s personal development experts, your feelings might be messages from the universe telling you whether or not you are on the right track in your life. Think of it as your small personal radar. If you feel good, you are going in the right direction, fulfilling your dreams, living in harmony with the universe. If you feel bad, you are not true to yourself in some area of your life and a correction needs to be made there. Try it for yourself. It’s impossible to think about something you really want and feel bad at the same time. Whenever you are bored or have another bad feeling, it’s the universe giving you a warning red light and telling you “Careful, you shouldn’t be doing this”. 

OK, so what do you do when you are bored?

1. Make sure it’s not your ego playing tricks on you

First you need to make sure it’s not your lazy ego that’s giving you this feeling. Are you attending a seminar you always wanted to? Are you reading a book you know you need to read in order to learn something necessary? Are you doing something really important for your close friend or a relative? Whatever important it is, there are shortcuts and tricks on how to enjoy what you are doing even if you’re not. They’re based on the simple fact that your brain can be fooled by pretending that you feel a certain way. These practices can help you not only enjoy the outcome of what you want to achieve but also the process of getting there.

2. Stop doing what you are doing

Another discovery you can make about your feelings of boredom is you have them because you shouldn’t be doing what you are doing. If this is the case then the questions you should be asking are “How do I stop doing what I’m doing?” and “How fast?”. And believe me this does not only apply to your minute-to-minute decisions in your life. Answers to these questions can have a dramatic impact on your long term goals and life.

3. Start doing something else

What you can do immediately is to develop a list of things to do when you are bored. It’s not the best thing you could do but at least it will make you think ahead of the situations and plan them. The list could include fun web sites to visit, things to read or things to think of (don’t forget your idea-capturing tool or pen or paper!). For example, are you going to spend some time traveling in a bus or car? What will you do to keep you entertained? Even better: What will you do to make a good use of your time? Start brainstorming now.

4. Generate an endless stream of ideas

You can start with the 30 Incredible Places to Turn When You Need Inspiration. Once you get the hang of it, you will discover that it’s easier and easier to create tons of things you could do. Make sure you capture them all, it’s been said that an average person generates about four ideas yearly that could make them a millionaire if pursued. The problem is that most people either forget about the ideas or dismiss them as nonsense. Make sure the system for capturing your ideas is reliable and trustworthy. I call this system “Inbox” and it can have many forms, paper or electronic. It will allow you the comfort of not thinking about the same thing again and therefore freeing your mental power for something else.

5. Get organized

You will also probably soon find out that once you have captured a lot of stuff, you’ll start needing some organizing techniques and habits to keep track of them. As an example, you can try David Allen’s Getting Things Done with a bottom-up approach(start with daily tasks and get to higher level goals) or Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with a top-down approach (start with roles and priorities and get to daily tasks from there). One thing is to capture an idea or task but to come across it again when you need it is another story. Be patient, it’s very easy to give up at this point. Also keep in mind it’s not a one-time process. You’ll have to incorporate the system in your day-to-day life otherwise you will end-up with two versions of your unsolved stuff. One in your “system” and another one in your head.

6. There’s never “too much”

One day you will wake up and discover there is simply more stuff to do than you could ever finish in your day, year and even life. Don’t panic. Having many things to do isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gives you the freedom to choose. If you capture an idea doesn’t mean you are doing to do it. You can always decide not to do it. This is the reason why good task management systems have at least two fundamental categories: first part where you capture all your stuff and second one where you keep track of things you’ve committed to do. Remember that having an opportunity to choose what to do is far better than not knowing what to do. What is the difference between having 10 and 1000 things on my TO DO list even if you can manage to do only 10? The list with 1000 items gives you 100 times more freedom :-) There are 100 times more things you could choose from. And this is where the fun starts!

7. Have fun

The equation is simple. In order to fulfill your life you must accept the inevitable fact that there’s always going to be more things to do than you’ll have time for. It’s a numbers game. If you only had enough things to do to fit in your day how would you know you were doing the very best you could during that day? You probably wouldn’t. It all comes down to proper time and task management and choosing how to make the best use of your time. If you feel overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities and if you wish the day had 48 hours then stop for a moment and think. Do you really have to do all of this today? What is the best use of your time right now? Things you don’t do today can easily be done tomorrow. That is of course if you haven’t committed to do them today. ;-) If you are feeling overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities it means you are simply committing to doing things you shouldn’t be doing. Now start doing something. Good luck ;-)

(photo credit goes to Andy Ciordia)