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Where do you find inspiration for your next app ideas?

How do you find new ideas? Where do you keep track of them? How do you decide what to work on and what to shelve?

Really excited to hear people's workflows and stories.


I love this topic, so I'm really glad you asked this question. 🙂 I'll actually answer these out of order…

Where do I keep track of my ideas? Right now, I keep "big project ideas" in a spreadsheet, which allows me to arbitrarily filter or rank ideas based on any criteria I want to add. Thoughts that aren't really developed yet go in my "Getting Things Done"-style pile to process, to eventually get turned into big project ideas. Getting into the habit of writing everything down has really helped me develop…

Where do I find ideas for things to work on? …my habits for identifying these ideas and letting them evolve over time. Maybe it'll come out of a minor frustration, or a conversation with a friend, but I try to write down every "wouldn't it be cool if…" thought.

How do you decide what to work on? If I feel motivated to work on something, I try to pursue it as much as possible; conversely, if I'm not feeling like working on something, I'm not going to push it unless someone else is relying on the thing getting done. This makes me feel a lot more productive — I don't ever want to feel like, "ugh, I really need to work on this thing" — I just do stuff.

Great and comprehensive answer mate which I really appreciate. When I've asked this question before, the 'how' and 'what' vary but the 'why' always revolves around the "I feel excited by this" or "I could see how this could improve my life". Would love to chat with you more about the topic if you've got the time and no stress if not but I'll leave my cal here => cal.com/jamie-davenport/dea