Six months after having my first child, I found myself on medical leave from work and in an intensive outpatient program for postpartum depression (PPD). The experience forced me into a kind of stillness I had avoided my entire professional life. No metrics. No meetings. No goals to chase. Just space.
At the beginning, it felt like the ultimate failure, and quite honestly, torture. For the first time since I entered the workforce, I wasn’t striving toward anything. I wasn’t producing or progressing. I was just existing, and it felt like an absolute waste. But as the weeks and months went on, something else surfaced. Curiosity. Possibility. The realization that stepping off the corporate treadmill didn’t make me weak. It forced me to reflect and be aware.
Parents, especially moms, are next-level experts at filling every single moment. Laundry. Organizing. Errands. Cooking. Wiping down a counter, then re-wiping it 20 minutes later. There are always things to do, which is why it can seem like what we are ultimately trying to avoid isn’t inefficiency but discomfort itself. Boredom, stillness, space. And, ironically, those might be some of our most undervalued professional tools.
After watching an interview with clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy on Jay Shetty’s podcast “On Purpose,” where Dr. Becky talked about why boredom is not only positive for kids but necessary, the wheels in my brain started to turn. Could we translate that concept to adults, especially at work? So I emailed her with a simple premise: boredom is just as good for adults in their professional lives as it is for kids and their development and well-being. She wrote back with a resounding yes and shared her wisdom on all things boredom.
Boredom Isn’t A Block. It’s A Threshold
Professionally, we often treat boredom like a red flag. If we feel unproductive we assume our work isn’t meaningful enough or we’re falling behind. In 2025, when every idle moment can be filled with a scroll or a Slack ping, that discomfort feels even sharper.
But, boredom, as Dr. Becky shared with me is, “often the feeling we have right before we come up with something new.” Whereas we’ve been conditioned to believe boredom is unproductive, she counters that, “It’s not a sign that something’s wrong. It’s a threshold you have to cross to enter creativity and problem-solving.”
And not only can it feel like we’re not accomplishing anything when we take time to just think, rather than respond to emails or watch a replay of last week’s All Hands, doing nothing is also a difficult thing to do. We’ve been conditioned to be always on, shaped by hustle culture at work and being tethered to our devices with instant access to information and “things to do.”
Harvard Professor Arthur C. Brooks goes so far as to argue that boredom isn’t a problem to solve but a positive “feature” of the brain that can catalyze creativity and foster self-awareness and improved mental health. Sign me up for a dose of all of it, especially the improved mental health part! In a Harvard Business Review video published in August 2025, he explains, “You need to be bored. Be bored more,” noting that unoccupied time gives the mind space to ask and wrestle with big questions, things like meaning and identity — the very things crowded calendars stifle.
Parents Know This Tension Well
Anyone raising kids today knows the guilt spiral that appears the moment a child says, “I’m bored.” It can feel like a judgment. Like we should have planned more, stimulated more, been more. Suddenly we’re contemplating dropping everything to entertain our children or panic searching for an activity.
Dr. Becky challenges that instinct. “Boredom isn’t a problem to solve,” she said, echoing Professor Brooks, “When kids say they’re bored our instinct is to fix it, but boredom isn’t a failure or an end point. It’s an opening.”
It’s the transition from a toddler screaming that they’re bored, to arranging stuffed animals in a circle and throwing an impromptu tea party. And at work, it’s choosing to spend your lunch break to go for a walk rather than respond to emails.
We Lose Something When We Eliminate Downtime
Corporate America has optimized itself to the minute. Back-to-back meetings. Zero white space. I often find myself sending a ping before a meeting saying, “running 2 minutes late, need a bio break.” Our brains and bodies are toggled to always-on mode.
“When we eliminate downtime at work, we lose access to one of our most valuable resources: our own minds,” Dr. Becky said. Reacting is necessary, she added, but it cannot be the only mode we operate in.
Just as kids need unstructured time to invent entire worlds out of cardboard boxes, adults need unstructured time to connect dots and think about the world in ways that aren’t possible in back-to-back meetings or while buried in their inboxes. Microsoft’s June 2025 Work Trend Index Special Report notes that for many, the modern workday has no clear start or finish. While there is more flexibility in where we work, the when has blurred completely, often eroding the space we need for recovery and focus. And while the report doesn’t say it outright, I’d take it a step further: when we lose that space, we also lose the conditions required to create something new.
Space Creates Possibility
Leaders may worry about giving employees too much slack in their day. What if nothing gets done? What if productivity dips? What if the pause is a sign of disengagement?
But Dr. Becky argues that space is often the birthplace of effectiveness. “Some of the best ideas, decisions and connections emerge when there’s space,” she said. “A moment of silence in a meeting can give rise to the breakthrough no one was rushing to say. And sometimes a pause in a career path opens a door you might never have noticed otherwise.”
We tend to equate movement with progress, but the two are not the same.
My own experience proved this. My time in an intensive outpatient program for postpartum depression forced a pause I never would have created on my own. That space allowed me to reflect deeply, uncomfortably so, which led to discovering a love for writing and ultimately to publishing my postpartum depression story in The New York Times.
The lesson is simple. Space isn’t negative. And, it’s not neutral. It’s catalytic.
For Women, Especially Moms, This Is Radical
Women are conditioned to maximize every minute. At work we’re measured by output. At home the demands never stop. And, when you’re used to operating with no margin, boredom feels almost irresponsible.
“When we fill all the space, there’s no room for us,” Dr. Becky said. “Pausing is not laziness. It’s a component of sturdy leadership. It’s the practice of saying: my time matters, my energy matters and my value isn’t measured by constant doing.”
That shift protects mental health and strengthens leadership at the same time.
The Takeaway
Boredom isn’t the opposite of ambition. It’s the companion that lets ambition breathe and ideas percolate.
And as my own experience has taught me, sometimes the path forward only appears when you finally stop trying to fill every minute.