Ask HN: Where do you get your inspiration from?

In no particular order:

(1) Listening to lots of podcasts and audiobooks. Amazon's even offering a holiday discount on Audible subscriptions, so grab that while you can.

(2) Reading incessantly, both non-fiction and fiction. Let me emphasize the fiction. The scientists that brought us satellites were inspired by Asimov's fiction, and the same could work for you.

(3) Sitting and watching. Our friends and family (and total strangers) constantly put up with small annoyances and major blind-spots. Ask yourself: Why are they accepting these pains?

Oftentimes, they do so either because no one's engineered a fix, or because -- and this is often overlooked -- no one's found a way to sell them on an existing fix. If you could find a way to get programmers to consistently write unit tests first, for example, you'd have an engineering "miracle" on your hands.

(4) Make a habit of meditating and journaling. The first, so that you can notice all the inspiring ideas already floating around inside your head, and the second so that you capture those ideas.

I recommend pen and paper (or a stand-alone voice recorder: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00COF74E4/) when doing both at once. That protects you from the "I'll only check Twitter for a minute" trap of using a phone or computer.

Good luck!

I'm in a similar boat.

Mine is driven by an eccentric fear of how the economy is changing and assumptions of what it will look like in 10 - 20 years, coupled with a pessimistic view of human nature (but not people, just the way non reflective people behave). I'm trying to financially secure my son's future.

Ideas come from somewhere, not sure from where it is. I do believe that everything you read, watch or listen is somehow "stored" and influences how you think and the ideas you have. Once I have an idea, I try to share it with friends and/or colleagues to see if they approach the problem/idea as I did and how differently they look at it. I usually write it down so that I can go back months later and think about it again. Sometimes they seem ridiculous, other times they seem just different.

Keep reading, watching, listening and sharing your knowledge and ideas. Keep your eyes and your mind open and try to understand how other people think and how they see the world (traveling and getting to know different cultures might help a lot on that).

The darkness and the silence. I have to turn everything off and just sit with my eyes closed. Well, going for a walk helps, too. Or laying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Being anywhere near anything that involves a computer is pretty much a no-go.

Sometimes, I break out a quill pen and an ink well and I "think out loud" on paper. Something about how slow the writing process is when you have to refill my pen after every sentence gives me space to think. Typing just doesn't work the same.

I have an interesting story about inspiration.

Fresh out of Brigham Young University, a man named Stephen Hales was having trouble figuring out a logo for his design agency, Stephen Hales Creative. He had spent weeks working on concepts for the logo but nothing felt right, until one day he was getting into his car when he accidentally spilled a drink of coffee or something similar. When he looked at the ground where the beverage had splashed, he saw what appeared to be the silhouette of a bearded man clutching at his scalp, a representation of the design process: both frustrating and enlightening. He used the spilled drink as inspiration for what would become — and is still, today — the company logo.

Anything can be inspiration, depending on the lens you have on when you encounter it.

Research has shown that even subtle things we don't consciously acknowledge have an impact on our ability to solve problems or generate ideas (i.e. to "inspire" us). The trouble is that, because we aren't always consciously aware of what is inspiring us, we credit creative "sparks" to current conditions and stimulus, even if what really sparked that solution or idea in your mind was really inspired by a billboard you passed on the freeway four days ago or a book you read when you were younger.

As a result, we waste quite a bit of time "seeking" inspiration. We feel like understanding where others gets their inspiration will somehow magically help us to find it ourselves more often. But that's not always the case.

More often than not, the best way to be inspired is to bury yourself in the problem or task you're working on.

To quote smashLAB co-founder Eric Karjaluoto:

"The problem with inspiration is that it’s random, which leads you to focus your hope on outside influences you can’t rely on...These stimuli aren’t under your control, available on tap, or always relevant to the work at hand. Thinking you can find ideas elsewhere leaves you flipping through magazines and browsing the web, hoping you’ll stumble on a magic cure."

Of course asking what inspires others can be enlightening and entertaining. I'm not going to bash any of that outright because that's a battle already won (just look at the thousands of books that sell each year around how to "find" inspiration).

Perhaps I'll leave you with another quote from Merlin Mann:

"Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging."

For more thoughts on the subject, consider:

http://everythingisaremix.info

https://medium.com/@mikula/its-okay-to-be-dumb-d536915238cd

http://jamesclear.com/schedule