I try to start by capturing all my good thoughts into a notebook. The second part is I try to review all the things I have captured on a daily, and weekly basis. If I am not currently working on a project, then I try to be open to inspiration, total cheese I know, but I find that if I "force" it, like for the next hour I am going to work on having a good idea, I fail. My best idea/projects have all come in a bit and pieces and then they all of a sudden form into a solid idea. When I have an idea, I then try and build a prototype as fast as possible. At that point I am usually in a position to decided if I should continue, shelve, or give up. In the end whatever you decided to do, make sure you try and work with the intention of getting better at something. If you do that, in the long run it doesn't matter if you fail at a project because you still learned something along the way.