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Comment by wvh | Hacker News Reader

Creative. I probably have the persistence and interest to pull something like this off, but I lack the fantasy to come up with such cool projects. Luckily there's the internet to see what impressive stuff people come up with.

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Tom 7 mentioned a thing in one of his videos, which is to keep a list, and write down every idea when you think of it, regardless of how stupid it is. Winnowing is for later. That way, when you have the energy to work on a project, you don’t have to waste it on coming up with an idea.

It really makes a huge difference in what you can get done with side projects. You probably have more interesting ideas than you think you do, but if having them doesn’t line up with having the time and energy to act on them (or even to just expand on them), they’ll fade away.

100%. And the "weird" (not weird -- useful!) thing that happens with time is that once you start writing down ideas (and you should definitely note pretty much all of them - regardless of how good/bad they seem), your mind gets into "having more ideas" mode... You sort of get a second wind - or more accurately, you start developing your "what if" muscle. And the stronger it gets, the more "what if"s you'll have. And some of those will 100% be really really good (whatever good means to you).

It's also ok to have really """bad""" ideas. They're always funny to read back (a month/year) later. They're fun to share with friends and strangers. And sometimes they lead to good ones as you think about what made you think the bad ones were bad in the first place.

But when you write it down - please include more than two or three words - because it's hillarious to come back to a list when a lot of time has past to see an idea written simply as 'The pope of physics' <- from my own list. I have no idea what I was thinking...

I have the inverse problem. Do you have any advice for me?

I have no problem coming up with, and remembering, cool projects. I just rarely have the energy or the lasting enthusiasm to actually follow through.

I would start working on one if I were you.

Find a partner who gives energy to you, and who you give energy to. Not always easy to find, but if you do, then its easier to work on stuff like this.

I assume you mean business partner and not romantic partner. My romantic partner gives me great energy but would be like "Why are you playing with that soldering iron and not with me?"

But yes, a good business partner (or two) is, for me anyway, a requirement to move something from idea to reality.

Then play with your romantic partner first, 2 minutes later you can work on the project together :^)

Gottem

One hour on average - sometimes two ;)

Nah man. It's a race. I finish first, I win. I win every time.

I have the reverse issue, I am constantly coming up with creative ideas, so that by the time I am done building idea A prototype v1 (something like what you see in this video) or v2, idea B comes along and distracts me from seeing idea A all the way through. And when the persistence and discipline is there, bills need to be paid, and the distraction is not idea B, but merely some mundane work.

I solve it like this: when at work the soldering iron is in the garage. That little barrier helps a lot when temptation to tinker strikes.

One thing that I really like about this site is that the creator spends a ton of time on documenting it all. I am usually so busy with projects I don't get around to it. Another problem is that, especially for larger projects, that you need to store and maintain them. And that gets old pretty quickly when you're lugging around 200 pound windmills and such.

Interesting. My electronics work-bench is right next to my work/personal computer, so when I block on work stuff I can switch to doing a little on my electronics projects. It's made me much more productive.

I'm just too easily distracted. I start on a thing that I think will take five minutes, next thing I realize that it's 7 am, birds are tweeting and there is a stone cold cup of tea sitting next to me and a bunch of non-priority stuff done (but it's so much more fun...).

Most dangerous times: when the administration needs to be brought up to date for the tax man. Then I really have to force myself. Fortunately I've been able to off-load most of that but even the little bit that remains is enough to get me to spend 30 hours on something else to avoid 1/2 an hour of work.

Isn't it great how you grab the soldering iron (or whatever) at 2 am for a quick thing, and five minutes later it's 7 am?

Just that... and here I am... 4:40 and not a soldering iron in sight :) Off to bed!

(Ear training exercises are fun. I just built an ear training module into the beta of pianojacq.com and it's a hoot, what's also interesting is that it seems to have an immediate effect on playing ability, I really didn't expect that)

That seems interesting, too bad I don't have a MIDI device (or any musical ability, but that's less important) to try it out...

Creativity can be trained just like any other skills! :)

I second taking note of stuff; like most things, genuinely practicing means you will get better.

Something that's also overlooked often is (1) Technical knowledge, (2) Methodical invention (3) Motivation!.

Technical knowledge helps you know which projects are possible (or just economically feasible), and map the roadblocks on the way; impossible inventions are not really useful.

Methodical invention means methodically looking at things instead of just randomly inventing. So you analyze a problem, like: (a) I want to make a volumetric display, (b) I want to bring (virtual) 3D objects to life. Notice the subtle difference between the two. Volumetric displays (a) can range from a lightfield display, which is a very elegant theoretical foundation (and can be realized in a number of ways), to volumetric persistence-of-vision displays like the own shown here. It's likely you will eventually arrive at whatever solutions are possible when you deeply research about a problem domain. Bringing a 3D object to life (b) can mean anything from digital fabrication, VR glasses, haptic interaction, robots, and more. It's a much wider problem domain.

Motivation is also really important. Understanding why you're inventing, and what you what you want to bring to life is also significant. Are you going to bring people joy, is it just very cool, is it a useful medical device that can save lives, etc.. Focusing on worthy subjects is also something you can study and that will really increase how good you are at inventing. Of course making stuff just because [we like it] is also important and valid :)

And for me the most important part is to have fun while you're at it...

I forgot to add: it's unlikely anything you come up with (while trying to develop your creativity) is going to be legitimately useful or even fun. It's like expecting to play a violin like Hillary Hahn (or <insert skilled musician>) after you've just picked it up. But the time to play an instrument so that at least you can tolerate your own sounds and have fun is much shorter -- and frankly, necessary I think not to give up before you can play really well (if that matters at all).

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