JFF: Polls/Topics - how do they come to you, when do you do them?

I don't really have a method, when watching something or reading something or simply letting my mind wander I get an idea. If it sticks with me a couple of days I start researching and if I find it possible then I suggest it.

It's not the best as I only make a poll suggestion once or twice a month but I have never worked on making up suggestions I do them by inspiration.

While going through the data base I'll come across a movie or actor or a quote or........almost anything and my mind runs away and I ponder a thought that sometimes blossoms and sometimes not. Sort of like a maze. You are searching for a way out. If you find the way out you have the basis for a poll. Get trapped......NO POLL!

Usually after I watch a movie or TV show and remember some similarities with something I watched before.

It depends. I'm seemingly quite chaotic in that regard: sometimes I do hand-written notes which I then turn in the suggestion and  sometimes I just start it right away in the list. 

Recording ideas somewhere is a good idea (hm). I have a hand-written notebook just for feature film ideas and since I have more then 280 of those... I really need some updates done to it and, maybe, a bigger notebook. 

Some time ago I used the same method as you but now I'm using Google keep to take notes because it syncs both my phone an pc.
Currently have over 300 notes and have no idea what most of those are about. (I usually take notes about everything that comes to my head, not only poll ideas.)

I get ideas mostly while I'm bathing, I don't know why. But I think water has some effect on me. :D

So? How do I (others) formulate polls? 19/20 (being a conservative calculation) of my suggestions, there is at least 1 or more options belonging to "I adore ___________" category. It's rare (and they turn out to be the least favorite of my polls/poll suggestions) when I try to make an opportunist poll based on something popular I have no interest or (worse) even dislike... (unless I found a way to Riff the Hell out of it with a negative slanted poll as opposed to which ___ is your favorite/positive slanted poll).

I prefer finding ways to make lists that aren't shotgun blasted (somewhat random and no parameters) hyperbolic lists of films, actors, etc... that basically ask which of these _____ is the best/favorite...? Though sometimes, my suggestions are (eventually just) that ... but not worded in such obvious manners.

I don't keep ideas around ... if I lose faith in them or lose interest in them. I usually delete them. And only recently decided to go around through my long list of existing lists and now stumbled onto several polls ... that I started but actually forgotten to follow through populating them or just deleting them if I can't remember what the hell they were supposed to be about (as many just have a title and no question) in the first place. You'll likely see some lists I made in 2015 that I'm now pushing forward for the first time here.

Now that I can sign into the getsatisfaction forum at work (whereas I had been shut out IT wise for a span of a couple of years), I am back in full tsarly swing. Of course, my polls are barnburners that can go viral on the IMDb front page... I will keep on dropping these weird ((allegedly)) original suggestions until the inevitable heat death of the universe.

I can get ideas at any time; out, at home, even at night when I'm almost asleep.  ;)  I don't write them down, because if the idea is good enough, it will stick with me until I have time to get online and start the process.  It may take time, because life happens and that always comes first, but I will finish the list finally and post it on GS.  I find that I push out more in the winter when the weather is nastier, so there's not much else to do but sit inside.  :)