My personal advice would be to find an open-source software you can contribute to. While building from scratch is fun it’s difficult to maintain and harder to find inspiration. You also miss out on collaboration and community, which are very important, in my opinion

But if you really want to make something yourself then I’d say be patent and wait for a problem to arise. Practice thinking about solutions to problems you could solve yourself. For example, my friend once complained that Apex Legends doesn’t have a random button, so I made him a website to randomize a character. I didn’t sit down and think about all the domains I know, I came across the problem naturally and was just aware that I could “fix” it

“What should I make?”, or “What do I need to make?”.

These are very open ended questions which make it hard to narrow things down to one project and generally I don’t find them a good question to ask. Instead of looking for something to make for the sake of needing to make something try to find a problem you have that you can solve by making something. All the best projects are solving some problem some one has had and it is a much narrower question to ask. You can narrow it down further by looking at each of your hobbies/interests/things you need to do one by one.

If you want to be more systematic about it go through each area of interest and write down every issue or problem you can think of. Big or small, easy to hard to solve (with or without a programmable solution) - anything and everything. Just get them down on bit of paper or document. You can expand on it over time as well when you think of something or encounter an issue for the first time. Then once you have a few things you can consider them in more detail. Think about how you might solve things, and slowly filter things out to one that most interest/bug you and that you could solve with a program in some way.

That should give you specific things to think about and ponder over which can be very helpful for leading to an actual project idea.

And honestly these days I have far more project idea that I could start then I have time to start. But they all start with a problem I encounter. I tend to need to think through an idea I have for a bit then write it down and shelve it for the future so it does not distract me from the current things I have on the go. Or if something is more important/interesting than a current project it can replace something else I have on the go (which you need to be careful of that you don’t keep jumping to new things and never finishing things you have already started).

That’s a common mindset to have but honestly I think one of the most harmful. Don’t try to think of stuff to build. A plumber doesn’t think “oh what plumbing can I build today?” A home builder doesn’t think “what house can I build today?” They wait for a need to arise in an area and they then think “I can solve that”. Trying to make up problems just never works. Wait for something to happen and an idea will come to you.

I live my life and i come across something that is painful because it takes time, or is complicated/tedious, etc, and i think to myself “is there anything i can do to make this better?”

Look for problems you have and try to solve them. Also as you learn more about programming you add tools to your toolbox. Having those tools helps you think about new problems you could solve. You might still have to look up the documentation on how to use that tool, but you can at least start to recognize that it could be used to solve a problem you’re having

Do you not have tools you use, or miss, in your normal PC use? I have so many things I would like to have and do or finish. Things come up naturally.

Outside of brainstorming with a friend what projects we could work on together, where I was able to make use of my backlog, ideas, and wishes anyway, I never had to think about what I want to make.

Can be tools and apps or libs you use, contribute to or implement an alternative that may or may not fit you better, or tools you’re missing. I’ve made various stuff for data conversion, archiving, video cutting, hosting/config setup, checksum generating, hex viewer, …, exploring new tech, …