Welcome to AW.
You can work on most of the things you listed, and you will probably find that stealing ideas is less of a problem than you think (and there's no reason to post your ideas here if you don't feel comfortable doing so).
You might want to look at MS OneNote to keep track of your notes and things. Some people really love it. I've tried it and it doesn't do much for me. You can try a trial version for free.