Would say general brain storming and inquisitiveness, i.e. how does this actually work and can I improve on it.
As an example of this thinking, I looked at ghostery a while back and thought it could be cool to work out what I would have leaked and to which websites. "Would have been tracked" was born, though still got to get around to coding, feel free to take it you want.
As a few other high level project suggestions; cloning programs for different languages, play around with electronics (there's years there) or pick a few open source projects to contribute to.
As an example of this thinking, I looked at ghostery a while back and thought it could be cool to work out what I would have leaked and to which websites. "Would have been tracked" was born, though still got to get around to coding, feel free to take it you want.
As a few other high level project suggestions; cloning programs for different languages, play around with electronics (there's years there) or pick a few open source projects to contribute to.