How makers stay productive

I would like to ask you why do you want to build something in the first place. It might sound like a stupid question, but is a fundamental one. It's going to determine your approach to the thing you're building. Just make sure you have the right answer for you 🙂

Having answered that question, the possibilities are endless, really.

Just keep your eyes and mind open. There must be something you love doing. Or something that you're doing but is a pain-in-the-a** experience. Also, listen carefully to the people you interact with. Find out what they love doing, look for patterns, ask them questions about how they imagine their experience could be better. What problems do they have on a daily basis. There are basically endless problems/ideas around us. We just have to tune ourselves to the exact "frequency". One big advice I could give you is to not try to come up with a unique idea. It might be something that's already existing, but something that you think you can do better, cheaper, faster, etc… It might be something totally dumb, like text to emoji converter… 😀 Just explore and don't overthink it too much. Do something that excites you, build momentum and things will click. That's it from me. Good luck! 👊🙏

One tip that was given to me is to keep a small notebook/notepad with you always. And whenever you find that you're feeling annoyed at something (or some event that happened), jot it down. Get into this habit first.

Revisit the entries once in a while, and see if there's anything there that's worth solving. Easiest thing to do is to solve your own problem first.

But more importantly - you have to start doing.

Get familiar with the process. After several rounds of trying, you'll get the hang of it. This is important, because nobody hits a billion-dollar idea on their first try.

Yes, I had this problem.

Answer: Live & observe

I'm not one to code just to be coding or to learn for learning sake. I'm very purpose-driven. So when I realized my limitation & inexperience w/ other industries - I took deep dive look into myself and my world by doing a retrospective and SWOT analysis.

I found it easier to identify & work on problems that have impacted me, my family, friends, and colleagues, in other words my world. Yes you can solve/serve a problem unrelated to you, but generally you need a lot of time and cash to educate yourself about this world that problem present.

Trust me, your daily life will present new challenges to you in work and life.

Also, be open minded, friendly, helpful, and curious. Explore other communities outside of your industry, niche, religion, and race. Be willing to learn from anyone - whether they be older, younger or different.

It depends on what you want. Maybe you are looking for an idea to reinvent the wheel? Think about what you want ? Be famous (validation from others)? Have a business (financial independence by sacrificing freedom) ? Change the world ? (<- this one is really cheesy and most of the time is an excuse to become famous) Freedom (this can conflict with creating a biz)?

If you really like biz you can look to other softwares and think about how you can do them better or easier to use and launch a simpler version for a lower price. Try to avoid B2C market and focus on B2B because it's much easier.

Good luck.

Build the ones that aren't interesting and that you deem aren't worth solving. You might find something in there - even if you don't strike gold, you'll learn. And you can share what you've learnt, and you might inspire someone else.

Try lots of things. Don't be afraid to clear the wastewaster.

"If you have a dumb idea, but no other ideas, work on the dumb idea, until you get a better one.

Make all your mistakes with the dumb idea 🤣" –Mubashar Iqbal

I had the same struggle.

Two things that worked for me.

1) improve something you already use but is missing something crucial for you 2) start building ANYTHING and once creativity hits you'll run across an idea

I waited so long for "this one genius idea" that I'll pour my hear and soul into. But nothing ever came to my mind this way. Once I started building something new ideas followed all the time.

Looking for problems out in the wild never worked for me. I wanted it to work. But it never did. I need to work on problems, that I face myself. And I can only uncover them as I go along.