The journal is an excellent idea. I write everything down. When I look it over later, I'm usually embarrassed that I could have thought of anything so lame. But every once in a while, there are a few gems in there.

I always have pencil and a small notebook next to the bed. The best time for me to get good ideas is as soon as I wake up. The second best time is right before I go to sleep. I carry index cards and a pen at all times during the day, just in case.

The other important ingredient in good ideas is to get out there and experience things. All the time. You never know which inputs will spawn ideas, so get lots of inputs.

My best ideas have usually come when I see how something is and think, "There must be a better way." Then I let it lie dormant inside and trust my "inner self" to come up with something when I least expect it.

(My best hacking ideas ever came from the first time I saw a code generator. Simultaneously I thought, "That is so cool!" and "It can be so much better than that.")

I always have a bunch of paper in my back pocket for writing stuff down on the spur of the moment and then I develop the idea as a mind-map, sleep on it, and then develop it some more.

The singer for the band, The National, apparently forces himself to write down a new idea (for lyrics) every 45 minutes. He says he only uses about 5% of what he comes up with. Coming up with a lot of crap is a recurring trend for many successful creative types, but you only hear about the 5% that isn't crap.

I'm sure the ideas weren't that great, but the critical thinking is more important.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.764966,-87.724457&spn=...

I only did this sporadically (regrettably - not only would I have a lot of ideas by now, but I'd have something humorous to look back at and/or give my kids), but I started having lots more ideas toward the end of my undergrad time and during grad school. My idea generation dipped for a while after grad school because, you know, life gets in the way. But it has picked back up again as my life has stabilized and I've started keeping a tiddlywiki of ideas. Most bad, a few good. None brilliant.

First non-trivial idea? I don't remember. I think it may have had something to do with a novel way of feeding cows or something like that (I grew up on a semi-working farm). As if cows need a new way to eat.

Also, interesting ideas are rarely individual insights but usually come from merging two or more different ideas in a new way to create something genuinely cool.

There you have it. It's hard to think of interesting ideas we had in the past because we tend to think of ideas as atomic, but those kinds of insights are pretty common and thus not so interesting, it's usually when you have a complex set of inter-related ideas that something really significant and interesting can emerge.

I think a lot of the ideas I had as a teenager were basically things I discovered independently, usually in awkward or incomplete incarnations, but would have been "obvious" to someone more educated and older. Or if not obvious, at least fairly easy to research or look up. (linear algebra particularly stands out as one of those things that, had I known it, I would have saved myself weeks of effort)

I wonder whether I'd be better at what I do now if I'd had access to the internet earlier (thus skipped a load of "unnecessary" hard work) or later. (thus developed my capacity for independent thought further) Given my acute case of "programmer's block" right now I'm leaning towards the latter. :-/

After that I always wanted to be correct in my drawings so I got interested in children science books. My mom read me kids science stories/tales. I preferred them to fairy tales.

I was 9. I remember imagining how it would be cool if instead of cells my body consisted of tiny robots that intermeshed together and substituted for various bodily functions. Sorta like nano bots I came to learn about 15 years after

I was 10. it was 1988. Soviet Union. I kept drawing a small submarine with all the life support, buoyancy and structural elements I could think of. I wanted to swim from Chukotka/Kamchatka to Alaska

Good thing he wasn't M. C. Escher's grandfather! :)

Well, if I have a kid, I'm going to buy him some dynamos and tell him to build that sucker.

In fact, I'm quite sure that this would happen. As jwz says, the universe tends toward maximum irony.

I've noticed this too.

For me it's mostly when I'm stressed out. For example when I was learning for exams I very often had interesting ideas I started to dissect and analyze. Even though the ideas were interesting and intriguing, I quashed most of them because from a business perspective (and that is my background) I could see the idea prosper. I too write most of my ideas down so I can use them later or use them as inspiration.

I also remember, before that, reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye and being impressed that Luke could recharge his lightsaber from Han's blaster and spent a long time working on designs for universal plugs and sockets that would allow arbitrary recharging between devices. I am still waiting for this to be possible.

But well before that (say around 6-7 years old) I recall drawing devices (just can't tell you what they did!)

But my goal was to understand electronics enough to modify a cell phone, so I could use it as a telephone jack that I could plug in a laptop (wireless 56k modem). I though it could revolutionized the world.

Obviously this wasn't the best approach for this problem, but I was still pissed when I saw the first wireless internet cards from Telcos.

"it's damn hard to get into an Ivy League school. Even valedictorians and kids with perfect SATs are rejected from their top picks every year. But athletes got into the best schools even with mediocre grades...

Let's think about this logically. To get into an Ivy as just a student you basically need straight A's, 1400 SATs, and lots of extracurriculars. This meant I'd have to go to school eight hours a day, do two or three hours of extracurriculars, and then go home to six or so hours of homework. As an athlete A's and B's are fine as long as you don't have any C's, and you don't need any major extracurriculars other than your sport. That's what the coaches will tell you when you're being recruited at least, but in reality a couple C's are usually fine if you just want to go to an Ivy but you don't much care which. This would require going through the motions of being a student, and then practicing a couple hours a day year-round. Same result, less work, more fun!"

The logic behind this doesn't really make sense unless you're stuck in the mentality of a zero-sum world. That said, this thinking seems to have been a precursor of sorts to later and more interesting musings on zero-sum systems.

I can only remember a handful of specific ideas I had before that which I'm still vaguely impressed with today.

http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/photo.html?th=jx/sb/svx2.jpg...

I realized this when I built an apparatus to test it: a crude Van de Graff generator on a scale. I ran it for a while but despite building up a small charge (it ran on a 9V battery), the weight remained unchanged. I was disappointed.

Over time, my ideas have become more practical. Still, I occasionally have urges to create a bipedal robot or a better coffee machine :)

Actually, the ideas themselves would be declarative, if there were details involved. Now I'm confused. Would like to read about.

If you are interested in infantile amnesia though, this paper is kind of interesting and gives a decent overview of the different theories:

Harley, K. & Reese, E. (1999). Origins of autobiographical memory. Developmental Psychology, 35, 5, 1338-1348.

However, I didn't pay all that much attention in developmental psych, my textbook isn't handy, and the Wikipedia article is not all that helpful. :)