Idea-Reference Journal
One practice that has helped me to collect and hone my preference for decorating my first home. But this is the same for character development, architectural details, fashion, and defining your style.
A Pinterest board is nice, but less tactile and often too fluid. By cutting colors, textures, snap-shots, image references and pasting them in a hard copy to write notes or review to see trends of colors and feelings.
When touring ArtCenter we saw their fabric and materials library. But it can be nice to develop your own preferred reference library of textures and colors and references that can help you select for a future space, story setting, or useful object.
Imagine what Wes Anderson or __ had collected in their journals or drawers, when they fleshed out their stories or world-building.