Don Romano (alt)
In his talk on creativity, John Cleese says you should give yourself about an hour and a half of time to play with ideas — the first half-hour to calm your thoughts down and the next hour to actually have ideas.
I've noticed that I tend to suddenly get ideas when I take long walks. It's hard to use a smartphone when you're walking, which is good for you, since you have to invent your own thoughts instead of consuming other people's thoughts.
Don Romano (alt)
On a related note, I should stop thinking that my tech ideas need to be completely original. They don't. They only need to be better implemented than the competition.
Ideas are cheap, so if someone had the same idea as you, that doesn't matter.
Just because your idea has already been implemented, you shouldn't abandon it. You could create a better implementation. Also, if the idea is out there and has paying customers, this means it's a viable product. Every Coca Cola has a Pepsi.
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