I often find that my greatest ideas for new projects comes when I am going on about my life, doing something completely unrelated. I take inspiration for the occurrences around me, however routine-like or menial, and so I pause for a second to ponder about the ingenuity (at least it seems so at the time) of my thoughts, before going back to regular life. Before you know it, hours pass and once you are ready to come back to your work station, the idea has evaporated into thin air.
I find that, at least for myself, overcoming this seemingly big hurdle, had an easily solution: that is, write down every little idea that pops into my mind at the moment it happens. Some suggest carrying a notepad, but I resort to my smart phone's notes or even little post-it notes laying around the house. It's no secret that human memory is faulty; so, do what you can to make those ideas (whether big or small) stick!
Secondly, it is important to brainstorm, create, and create some more! Even if you start a project and don't see it through, you will have learned some valuable lesson from your new creation. Of course, finishing something, especially a big project, always comes with great satisfaction and feelings of accomplishments, but that doesn't mean that those unfinished or un-begun ideas are less important. I firmly believe that moving from project to project, idea to idea, keeps the brain agile and moving. Simply put, working on new projects gives us experience; experience which we could use to create a future masterpiece! And don't fret, you can always come back to an old idea ;)
Finally, while this may not seem explicitly important to some, I have found that walking, alone and unbothered, is one of the most effective ways to get those creative juices flowing. In fact, Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman wrote a book "Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind" in which they mention how walking is one of the five things creative people do to stay creative, because it enables daydreaming. Some of the world's greatest thinkers, Aristotle, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Darwin were known to be avid walkers.
Daydreaming can look different for other people. Perhaps to you it consists of a warm bath or doodling on a piece of paper. Regardless, doing activities that enable us to daydream allows us to keep attention on our thoughts and further to contemplate them. This point loops back very nicely to the beginning of this post: about how I seem to have some of my best ideas while doing menial tasks.
That's it for now, I'm off for a walk :)
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