Ask HN: How to spend your day when you are searching for the next idea?

My suggestion is to keep a notebook with you at all times, and keep track of the following 3 things:

# 1. Every time you need to do something, but you don't don't know how to do it.

Chances are you aren't the only one who doesn't know how to do it.

So once you learn how to do it, write a tutorial and then publish it on the web. The advantage of writing something soon after you learnt it yourself, is you remember which bits were tricky. (If you leave it too long, everything becomes obvious in hindsight and so you think what you write is obvious and thus maybe not worth explaining, writing or sharing.)

Get some feedback and then sell a premium version of it.

# 2. Every time you want to do something but you don't want to do it.

Chances are that you aren't the only one who doesn't want to do it, either.

It is said, the only things people either pay for are fun, knowledge, time, or safety.

So if you have an engineering mindset, you might be inclined to figure out how to automate or outsource this task. Once you have streamlined this for yourself, consider offering this same service to others.

#3. Every time a product or service that you already have, frustrates you.

Chances are that you aren't the only one with the same frustration.

What is the smallest modification you could make to the existing product that would eliminate this frustration.

Cloning / reverse-engineering a product for MVP is almost always faster than building a new product out of thin air. So then build this product and then share it on the web. Get some feedback and if positive, sell an improved version of it.

You should first ask if you really even want to make something. As developers, we like building stuff and solving problems, but sometimes you truly are just “forcing it”. The biggest problem for me isn’t deciding what to build, it’s finding the time to make something. When my time is so constrained, I find myself prioritizing higher pursuits in my life than just hacking on projects.

Personally, I only make something when a problem becomes so annoying or time consuming, that I’m forced to make it. This is why you should always do things the hard way or manual way first before automating it and only then can you say “Wow, this could make money”.

Contrary to what others have mentioned, I advise against keeping a notebook on you at all times. You end up obsessing over things and overdeveloping the idea and much of it is wasted effort. If a concept for a project/idea you randomly think of is truly good, you’ll remember it, otherwise it wasn’t really that important. The exception to this rule is if if the scope of what you want to do or the problem is very large and requires tons of research, such as developing a new programming language or OS, etc, and not just an app or farming ads.

Overall, I would say to keep your process organic and invest more time in learning new things than you do on gambling on what may be half baked ideas. When I’m not sure what to build and have time to, I just buy a book on a subject I’m interested in, that has some overlap with the idea and but more so with what I’m interested in as an individual—-hell, maybe consider writing a book. Otherwise, be very experimental and conduct small hypothesis tests, starting with your largest to smallest, to make conclusions and _do_ keep a notebook of them. This is simply a matter of taking inventory of what assumptions/conjectures you have and either rejecting them or failing to. What I usually do is take an assumption and do the exact opposite; if, say, you wanted to make a new chat app, then write an essay on why making a new chat app is a bad idea and publish it. You’ll be surprised how much software out there is “broken by design”.

This works for me (when I have the time):

- keep a notebook with you all the time. Get in to a "mode" where you collect ideas (shitty or not :) ). Similar to to the photographers look when walking through the city you might end up seeing ideas you where not open to see before.

- Get out of the house. Go ta a cafe, to the river, woods etc. Helps focusing and "doing work".

- For finding ideas I use sort of a systematic exploration (prefer a keyboard over a notebook for that one). I guess it helps that I enjoy doing this.

Systematic Exploration:

- find constrains or focus

- see what fits

- once you found something explore in depth

Constrains/Focus:

- I'm good at UI and computers

- I'm fascinated by the nature of information

- I won't be able to build AI

Possible Fit:

- I can see problems in organizing information, maybe there is something.

Explore:

- So what is "organizing information"? Writing down, re-organizing, consuming again. How do they relate? If I can record everything, is that good? Nope, need to be good for consumption or my knowledge doesn't help at all...

- So what might be wrong is a lack of focus on later consumption when taking notes, how can we improve that? Where do people take notes, can I modify that environment? Here we are getting closer to a product...

There is more approaches to the exploration, I could also start with: What costs time and effort in my work? Can I make it more efficient?

Also get used to 98% of the ideas not working out or having flaws when sleeping over them for a night. You will get better at ideas and once you have one worth perusing it will also give you new ideas or morph into another one (nothing ever goes as planned).

In such times, I spend most of my time studying products that I use. Understand what makes them work, why people are buying, who is buying etc It just help train your mind to identify what matters when building a successful product

I have also started blogging, which helps me organise my research and past learning

The interplay between CS innovation and computer games goes all the way back to the days of spacewar and Ken Thompson's chess programs.

With this in mind, I put together a free linux compendium of classic PC simulation games: https://alternativeto.net/software/esports-for-engineers/

This was a way of building up momentum to work on more serious projects.

I think I am sort of similar. Most of my ideas are spontaneous products involving the combination of one or more disciplines and/or life experiences.

I would focus on hobbies and maybe look at combining it with software. For example, I think a beekeeper in Sweden created an app that can identify and count varroa mites on bees.

> Ideas usually come to me spontaneously from some life experience, so it doesn't seem like I can force it. You already have the answer. Relax. Distract yourself temporarily with some gardening where you're not concentrating on the main problem. Gardening is good for your health in many ways.

Entertain some hobbies. You'll find when you are fishing everyday that you start to have ideas on how you can improve the fishing experience for yourself and possibly others.

If you have a hard time finishing side projects, then work on a smaller or simpler idea that you can finish in a weekend or two.

I studied many different things and read many books.

I'm about to put down my projects and work with some others on their idea. Maybe you too can find another's project to work on rather than starting one from scratch?

Maybe get a job. A job gives you two things: problems and a context in which people pay for solutions. You can then use these pains as ideas of problems to solve.