That passing thought is not you; it’s just your busy brain.
Brains are like sharks: they like to keep moving and busy.
Your brain will always keep thinking and generating thoughts even when you’re trying to relax and settle. This is why it is sometimes hard to get to sleep, or relax. Your brain doesn’t like being idle.
That means just because a random thought popped into your head that it’s ‘you’. It’s probably just your busy brain. Yes, your brain and your own thoughts are separate. Your conscience is separate from your brain’s own ideas.
Your brain gets busy when you’re bored. This is partially why you doomscroll. Your brain wants to keep busy. Society has also placed less value on boredom than it used to. No one daydreams anymore it seems.
Be bored. This is the home of ideas
But… if you’re bored, then you think and craft your own ideas. This is good. This is where novelty and innovation are found. Being bored is not the end of the world despite what your kids, or nieces and nephews might say.
You can also read a book, or write, sketch draw, go for a walk, etc. Do something creative. These are boredom antidotes.
Next time random thoughts start appearing, just ignore them. If you’re trying to sleep, or relax, then focus on your breathing to give your brain something to do: breath in, hold it briefly, breath out, hold it briefly. Repeat. As thoughts intrude, then keep coming back to your breathing. Notice the weight of your body as you do this.
Go compare your experience of boredom and random thoughts with others. You might be surprised.
This post is part of a project pulling together my materials and ideas about Teaching Team Collaboration: the Human-Side of Software Development for software development to students.
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The ideas above are from my book 101+ Ideas to Improve Team Collaboration, which covers all of these little things that students can do to improve their collaboration. Also available via Kindle.