Blissful daydreams of holidays on glittery beaches, wind in the hair—sorry, they actually
intensify boredom.
Let your mind drift to idyllic thoughts, as volunteers did in a study at the University of California at Berkeley, and whatever you're doing in real time (for them, jigsaw puzzles) will seem less interesting than if you hadn't been out to sea. The problem: When we catch ourselves happily adrift, we tend to interpret the lapse as a sign that the task we are trying to do is dull—even if it isn't—which only perpetuates the cycle.
