The Importance Of Ritual To The Creative Process | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
Art Markman published a blog post on Fast Company on the importance of rituals in creativity:

To really develop a habit for creative practice, you need a regular ritual. For example, Stephen King (a prolific and creative writer) sits down each morning to write for a few hours. He compares the process of getting ready to write to the ritual of getting ready to go to sleep.

In order to create rituals for creativity, you need to think about what makes you feel creative. I find that having discussions with students and colleagues leads to great ideas for new experiments and projects, and so I schedule regular meetings of my lab and meetings with students with the express purpose of generating ideas. If you work best alone, then you need to put time into each day to engage in your creative pursuits. Whether you do it alone or in a group, you need to find ways to generate ideas, knowing that some of those ideas will be great ones.

Obviously, the key limitation for these creative pursuits is time. That is why rituals are so important. By making the pursuit of creative ideas a part of your daily life, you make the time you need to be creative. Though you never know which day will be the one where the light bulb goes off, a consistent practice will put you on the road to a breakthrough.