Given the fact meals/work/commute/exercise/society demand so much of our day, the first task of creativity is to creatively hack time so you can work on projects. I’ve heard someone say (s)he was so bored (s)he “read the entire internet” at work…so why not read the entire Swift library, or Stephen King’s On Writing? Time-hacks are the first task of creativity.
Even Tolkien literally wrote in the trenches.
One of the best I got as advice as a student was to journal or scribble–note down anything you see or think to recall it later. Unfortunately my hand writing is so poor especially on the subway train — sometimes it’s hard for even me to decode. It’s true though Tolkien wrote in the trenches, apparently Salinger carried Catcher with him as a talisman of sorts. And then there is Kipling. As for the internet–I agree about the rabbit hole. But if you can take advantage of a digital library and read the classics that is great. My job doesn’t really allow for it–just the nature of the work. But I have a book club friend who is scientist and sometimes there is tedious data collecting where she will read a stack of traditional paper books during the course of the project — while logging it/the computers are running, et al.
Kent Wayne 
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