Listening to a podcast from Squiggly Careers, about comfort and courage zones, I realised that there is another zone that gets forgotten – the ‘boredom zone.’ This to me is a danger zone that needs to be acknowledged and addressed.

How much time people should spend in both their comfort and courage zones is something that is discussed in numerous books/ articles/ podcasts but I feel that there is a third zone that isn’t nearly as productive as the other two – the ‘boredom zone.’ This is when you are doing things on autopilot that aren’t contributing to yours (or others) growth or happiness. 

Comfort zone – doing things you enjoy but don’t stretch you

Courage zone – doing things that excite/ scare you

Boredom zone – things that are mundane and not enjoyable. 

In home life they might include doing the washing up, cleaning the kitchen, going to the supermarket. In work life, they might include doing your expenses, scheduling meetings, xxxx. These are all important and necessary tasks but none of them interesting or taxing. They are very unlikely to be activities in your ‘courage’ zone (though unblocking the kitchen drain last week did fall into that category!), and are unlikely to provide that much pleasure (which is an important facet of things in your ‘comfort zone’). 

Therefore, finding ways to manage the tasks that fall into this zone is important to allow us to focus on both our comfort and courage zones. If 70% of your time is spent in the ‘boredom zone’ then it seems unlikely that you will be spending anywhere near enough time in your ‘courage zone’ – the area where you learn. 

There is never going to be a “correct” mix of time spent in all three zones and not only will this be different for everyone but also change over time, but acknowledging how much of your time you are even able to spend in your comfort and courage zones is an important factor for getting the most out of your time.