This is great advice, I do a lot of this. It’s totally key to make your activity easy and ongoing, even if it’s only a slice every day, that keeps it all fresh and ready to go in your mind. Put stuff away and set it up only on the weekends and you have to ramp up a lot.
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Query- how do you “keep everything wired up” without overcomplicating further?
I sometimes think that’ll help, but then I find myself rewiring everything 
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Cause of step 1…… as much as I’d love a room packed wall to wall with gear, I don’t, it’s all pretty simple. If it needed lots of wiring I just wouldn’t bother. Can’t rule out that in reality that’s my wallet speaking……
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I have way too much gear. But I have a patchbay and a large mixer, so setup is made easy and I don’t need to change the wiring often, even if I have different people coming home to play ^^
“Keep everything wired up” is, IMO, a very serious advice. A power switch and bang, I’m ready to go!
If I can’t come up with something decent, I switch off and come back later, but I hate it when I feel the urge to play and have to spend even 5 minutes wiring things up.
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Was same for me, OP-1 little breaks during Dadlife. To Jottwehh’s point, the immediate generation of pleasing sounds (e.g. subharmonicon) is a nice starting point which I feel OP-1 does well with their funky little drummer/keyboard dudes and non-super-programmatic sequencing (tombola, etc…).
The blank canvas is a tricky space for everyone for sure! Whether it’s that DAW void staring back at you or only a [ 1 ] amongst the [ 16 ]! 
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Whenever you want to do sound design it always take some time programming the sound if you want instant fun maybe some kind of hardware with presets or so and you can twist them and you will get easily good sounds
This is probably the best advice. We all buy gear as a way to compensate the lack of rewards we get from actually making music and chasing this dream of making better music with other/more gear.
I’m definitely going through some deep introspection stuff about that problem. Thanks.
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It will be more complicated at first.
I have audio patchbays with enough connections for all of my gear. Wire them up how you think you’ll use stuff the most. The other stuff can be wired to patch bank points that aren’t hooked up. Label them all.
I also have iConnectivity boxes (MIOXL, 4+ etc…) so that all of my MIDI connections can be available. I even made a MIDI patchbay from a TRS patchbay with TRS to MIDI cables for extra things.
If you use a DAW, label all of your inputs/outputs and/or make a template.
Once all of this was done, I just turn stuff that I want to play on. I can be playing and recording any of the gear I own in a matter of a minute or two. Changing routings is a patch cable away.
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Well you know how it goes…
In the meantime I bought my first Eurorack. Totally shooting myself in both feet here! 
Bad call! That’s gonna be a very very expensive endeavour for not much benefit imo. And I’ve actually made and sold my own modules (I even have a profile on modulargrid called 256klabs).
But hey some people are really happy with it. It just never felt really fulfilled in fact, it was a huge cause of stress and anxiety that I’m glad I’m done with once and for all.
Good luck.
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I tried so long to stay away from it, but at some point I just caved. Probably because I got the case pretty cheap and you only live once right? 
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Honestly, dirtywave M8. Can take it around with you. Can power it up for a quick go, use it anywhere.
On top of those things it is very deep and creative device that is fun to use and explore.
I haven’t touched my other music equipment really since I got mine…
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I don’t have kids, but I’ve been going through a similar re-evaluation process as the OP, regarding how and why I make music. There is already a lot of great advice to be found in this thread, so thank you everybody for your contributions.
I just sent back the ST within the return period, as I just wasn’t feeling it. I’ve had the DN for about three years and really enjoyed creating patches on it, even though only very few of those made it onto finished songs. So it’ll be sold next week. After going through periods of using the OTmkll, DT, AHmkll, DN, and ST, I think I’m a bit burned out on elektron machines, as much as I liked making music with them. Especially since I’m coming from a more guitar-based background, I felt I always had to steer against the dance music vibe the elektron tended to pull me into. I also spent way too much time with configuring midi and audio routing, overbridge and bitwig settings, ect.
So my plan is to do a bit of a reset, take a little break from music, or rather, trying to take a break from having the urge to actually use all my gear to its full potential, not trying to plan out the next albums and what kind of songs should go where, but just leave everything be for a few weeks. In case inspiration strikes, I’ve still got my guitar, a poly beebo, and an op-1 to play with, and that is more than enough. But the main thing is, that there is no larger goal at the moment, no album to finish or work towards to.
I’ve pre-ordered an m8 and I’m still really excited to get it, even though its not too different from the elektrons in terms of workflow. The main difference is that I can use it anywhere, even on my commute to work on the train (1,5h every day). With the elektrons I was always tied to my desk, which I couldn’t always use as it’s in the bedroom of me and my partner and we do not have enough space to put it anywhere else in our small 2-room flat.
I’m very excited for the new op-1 field for the very same reason. In addition, I know the workflow inside out from having had the og op-1 for years.
As I’m forced to wait a few weeks until the m8 and op-1f arrive, I’ll just take the time to relax and step away from creating music a little bit. Just realized that this turned into a pretty long ramble, sorry for the long post!
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Music is meant to be fun. I think youve got your priorities right.
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Bad call for you maybe. For me, eurorack was the complete “break free” of hardware limitations. My ‘eurorack recordings’ folder keeps on growing with thousands of useful samples.
I’m in the same boat as the OP, although for different reasons: I no longer have the patience or motivation to record albums or make music in a structured way, I really just want to have fun at night when I’m done with all my daily responsibilities.
For me, what has worked better has been to use one single groovebox along with a novation launchkey mini keyboard: I use the launchkey’s mutate and deviate arp modes to come up with interesting note sequences that I would’ve never thought of on my own, and then just have fun trying different sounds and eventually adding some additional arrangements, but without any preoccupation of creating a finished track. I can get lost for hours on this process, it’s very relaxing for me.
Ultimately, I think the gear that you use is irrelevant, it’s really all about your mindset: coming to terms that you probably won’t create anything life-changing and learning to have fun in the process.
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I’d check out the Deluge, it is much more free-form than Elektron devices while covering a lot of the same functionality except it lacks the same level of live parameter tweaking. (But you could hook up a MIDI controller for that.) Also, like old school Elektron it features multiple synth engines, so you don’t have to think about what device to use.
It is also battery powered and the price has remained steady.
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Thanks for the recommendation. I had my eyes on the deluge for a while, but I don’t think it’s for me. I’m pretty content with having very little at the moment. The last thing I want is hooking up multiple devices, even if it’s just a midi controller (I also put away my linnstrument128 for now). The m8 will provide more than enough to learn and discover, once I have it. And the op-1f will be last purchase for a long while, I hope.
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A MIDI controller isn’t required for Deluge, just if you want more rapid access to parameters for the purpose of performance.
I can see the pull of the M8 over the Deluge with its proper screen and comfy tracker interface.
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If you say you´re “coming from a more guitar-based background” I simply don´t get why you lean towards m8 and similar products…m8 is sitting in front of a mini display rather than “making” music.
And the closest to “making” music is learning the OT inside out, train your muscle memory and record your own samples.