Boredom is a waiting room. Stay long enough without your phone and something creative walks in.

The mind makes its own material only when nothing is being fed to it, and the first stretch of that emptiness is unpleasant enough that most people end it within seconds. What arrives after the unpleasant part is the connection you would never have made while occupied. Boredom is the entry fee rather than the problem.

Leave one predictable gap unfilled this week: the wait for a bus, the line at a counter, the few minutes before sleep. Keep your hands empty and let the discomfort run its course. Something usually surfaces, and it is worth writing down when it does.