How do I start coming up with all these actionable ideas? I mean, not that these are great, but it really doesn't matter for me, implementing them does. It just makes me feel ashamed for my lack of industriousness.
The world is full of interesting people doing interesting things, who come with interesting problems, who don't even know there might be a software solution for it.
On a tiny scale, I'm a programmer. I happen to be between programming jobs and to keep the roof over my head I'm working as a Medical Receptionist. I see lots of ways my skills (totally exotic in that arena) are useful. For example, I see someone doing brute-force hand search-and-replace on a document. I said, give me 10 seconds and I'll do it for you. Regexps, despite the "two-problems" joke, are fantastically powerful and made them drop their jaws. But there's larger problems I have written Powershell scripts to solve, python scripts, macros in the software they use, excel spreadsheets, etc. Whatever tool to get the job done.
Problems are everywhere where people are. Go talk to them.
> If you're stuck for ideas, I recommend just building something; anything; even if it's terrible, and I guarantee a better idea will pop into your brain shortly after.
It doesn't really address the question. There's no such thing as "something, anything". I mean, there obviously is for the author, but that's exactly the difference between our mindsets, which is exactly the problem. I know how to build a concrete thing, most of the time. I have no idea, how to build "something", most of the time. I mean, there always are exceptions and sometimes I can come up with something, but that obviously happens rarely enough, compared to the OP.
