In the first place, I am a mathematician.  This means that I do research.  The way this takes place is very similar to a cook’s job.  The kitchen is my head, the ingredients are either pieces already in my memory or pieces I can borrow from the articles available on the market.  Then, using various recipes I am supposed to come out with tasty lemmas, theorems and more generally, an entire menu (of theorems), usually called a theory.  

I also teach at college level, usually something which has to do with probability, a field I research in.  

Tips I use for doing research:

First, google it.  Everyone does that now.  Usually if this turns out a lot of irrelevant links, then something more specialized should be used.  Then look on ArXiv, maybe you can find something in there.  If this does not show anything, then it's citations. You can use mathscinet or webofscience.  The bad part is that you need a subscription to access them.  If eventually you find something interesting and it's relatively new, then you can find it in electronic format.  If it's a book then you really need to go to a library. 

However, to get a better idea of book's content, look here at google books where one can search through them.  This is a very good way of getting inspirations and another way of getting references on various subjects without spending too much time in a library.  In the end, if there is something

you really need, then you should go to the library and get a hard copy. 

Google scholar, useful for specialized search.  It usually does a good job, especially if you do not have a subscription to mathscinet or you are away and do not want to mess around with the library site.  

Meanwhile, if you get bored, take a look at BBC for a good source of news.     

I also like hiking places and nature spots.  In the link above with Photos you can see some of the sites I visited (while I had the camera with me which usually I forget about).