What did you do during idle / blank phase?

Hey, that sounds like an exciting phase to be in. However, I do understand why you'd want to speed it up.

I made a tool to quickly discover business ideas from reddit. If you want to check it out, it's GummySearch, you can trial it for free. I also have some blog posts written up about how to discover ideas from conversations in online communities.

Best of luck, I'm sure you'll find something valuable to work on.

Embrace boredom.
I know it sounds weird, but I've been reading a lot about creativity, and the research keeps pointing to the need for humans to be bored.
In the morning I spend an hour a day meditating (no sounds, no phone, no nothing). Since I've been doing that ideas have been moved free-flowing later in the day.
This is backed by studies that have been replicated (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-winner-effect/201401/embrace-boredom-become-more-creative).

Other than that I'll try to learn something new in coding every day.

I can relate so much to the general state of blankness and I like the tips everyone shared in the comments. There are many methods to induce creativity, one of which is writing associatively, which essentially revs up your "right-brain" engine.

However, I came across different methods which some of us (including me) tend to avoid, and perhaps it's worth self-checking why that is. As you can imagine, it's the people/community-first approach and it involves research and communication long before coding/building and also, perhaps unintuitively, before IDEAS.

BUT, before you reach out to random communities or communities that you think everyone approaches, think about the kind of customers you'd like to be serving. Whom you'd be happy to talk to for as long as your product is under your wings?

This really got me thinking. I remember idealizing over a product for real estate agents, but feeling an annoyance everytime I think of such agent, I realized I'd rather not work with those types of customers.

TL;DR

1. Think of what kind of customers you'd like to be talking to and working with, begin with communities that already surround you, whether in yours/partner's/friends' occupation or hobbies.
2. Target those customers' communities via forums, facebook groups, subreddits and etc, and start networking. Look for patterns, what they like, what they miss, what they are bitter about.
3. Talk to them if you can, get really interested, not merely as a business opportunity seeker, but genuinely, it'll help to build trust.
4. Collect information and translate it to product ideas.
5. Get back to some of those individuals you (ideally) already reached out to before and get feedback, ask whether or not this kind of a product would solve their pain points, and most importantly, whether or not they'd be willing to pay for it.
6. Ask them to pay.
7. BEGIN building, get feedback, iterate.

Disclaimer: I have not done this myself. I'm just starting my journey as well. This is just useful information I have gathered so far and this seems the most efficient if what we'd really like to achieve is a product that brings real value to people. I'm most comfortable with brainstorming endless ideas with myself rather than doing the above, but, I intend to change it, and work through my personal difficulties and discomforts.

Hope this helps. I'd be happy to connect and discuss further.

For me, weirdly it's starting with the technology, perhaps this is because I tend to focus on deep tech. But I find a technology first approach is a good way to do ideation, when you're in a bit of a rut.

I'm not talking about doing a bunch of code without looking at a market, but more writing a couple simple routines or scripts to play around with how a piece of technology works. The more niche the tech, the better.

I hit two birds with one stone.

1. I learn a new technology, which increases the type of problems I can solve
2. It gives me a big burst of naive ideas, I hit google, which turn into finding niche markets to potentially satisfy.

I also tend to enjoy a project more if the tech excites me. Just be careful to do your validation work before you commit to it with this approach.

You’re probably going to spend a lot of time on your idea, so it’s worth serious consideration

But, you can also choose to solve problems in a particular topic/domain, and watch as your idea evolves over time into something even more useful

Find ways to be bored. When I'm bored, I'm extremely creative and come up with great ideas that don't make me bored anymore.

Posts like this fascinate me because it's a perspective I just don't resonate with at all! I have an infinite backlog of projects to build, but no time to do any of them. I just recently started exploring the route of partnering and outsourcing because while I can build stuff, it's not the best use of my time. I'm much more effective at sales, talking to customers, and figuring out what needs to be built in which order.

I lurk on Indie Hackers every single day, but the reality is...I'm not hacking on anything and I probably won't unless I'm part of a team. <insert shrug emoji here>

Don't force it. What I found works for me is to just help people through writing the best way that I can and somehow ideas start to pop out of nowhere. I had a very dry phase for a long time and recently after trying out this approach ideas start to spark out of the cracks!

This post on the topic might help

I've never found any ideas in an "I need to find an idea" state but in a creative/working state. This can be anything, in any field, create art, create app, create a simple website, create community, play something, gather information, do your taxes etc.

Ideas always come up when I do something. While doing anything you always encounter friction, something that bugs you and prevents you from doing what you want the way you want. That is often a source of an idea.

For sure there must be people who had the same problem and build solutions around it, but good chances that their way of solving their problem is different than the way you would solve it. This is your added value.

Also depending on the context (cultural, language, gouvernements administration, past experience etc), their problem might slightly differ from yours. This is your differentiator element.

I also listen to success stories on podcasts like indiehackers, which always helps me brainstorm ideas.

I curated a list of great products/founders showcased in those podcasts to keep this source of inspiration organized: indiefamily.io

Yeah, I feel the struggle. During these times I like to help in some open source projects, make some new friends, travel, learn new skills. For me, it is very important to get some distance to the product/startup world so I can stop thinking excessively about new ideas. I hope some of these ideas work for you! 🚀

I decided to pick up some skills that I knew I was lacking. Spent a good chunk of time reading about marketing.