Do nothing. Seriously. Allow yourself to become bored and you'll find your brain has suddenly got time to work on all the problems you mentally shelved. There's a good reason why a good number of ideas happen in the shower.
I find it difficult to ever feel bored. I could look out of the window for hours and find infinitely many details to entertain me. Almost as if there is a positive offset to my "exitement" level... On the other hand regular activities (e.g. eating in a restaurant) start stressing me out too much, so those things become less enjoyable. Is this fixable?
Nothing strange, you just spend more time processing information than average people.
My mental model is that any point the brain is dividing its resources between execution of current events and processing old events. If it spends too much time processing old events then it has no resources over to properly execute in the now.
When this happens some people just drop the unprocessed tasks from the queue to free up resources while others (like me and you) starts experiencing immense stress forcing us to drop what we are currently doing instead.
One way is not the other, sometimes I wish that I could execute better in the now but sometimes others wish that their brains didn't automatically drop important experiences without properly processing them first.
How to fix this? One way is ADD medication, increasing your dopamine forces your brain to focus on the now and drop old packets. It helps me execute better but I definitely become less creative and have a harder time remembering what I did when I took them. I might feel more creative when I'm on them, but most of those thoughts will be gone without a trace since they weren't properly processed.
I have this too, and as the other posted said it might be ADD-related. My mother and sister were both recently diagnosed, I'm meant to find someone but it's been on my todo list for months now... while I look out the window :)
Or you really can't do nothing, do a brain dump. Get a piece of paper and a pen, and write down everything that's on your mind: projects you want to do, things to take care of, people you want to hang out with, errands to run, etc.
Then decide how many of these actually need to be done and when, and organize your next week/month based on this.
Great answer. I'm frequently crushed by the weight of day-to-day things, and only recently identified that it's when I intentionally separate myself from them to the point where I'm literally not sure what to do with myself that I get find inspiration and energy to go and do the really interesting, valuable things.
Although there are forms of "do nothing" meditation (which are, ironically, very easy to get wrong), most forms of meditation are precise ways to train attention and awareness. Quite different from the kind of "do nothing" where your mind wanders mindlessly into boredom.
Going to church as a kid and young adult taught me how to sit and do nothing for an hour or so every Sunday morning.
I distinctly remember one time I was sitting there, mind aimlessly wandering when the solution to a bug I was having in my code on Friday popped into my head. I wanted to go straight into work to fix it!
Most weeks, I take an hour+ long walk around a lake near my neighborhood, no electronics. I find the time helps surface vital things that don't come up day to day.
