While I can hardly call me an amateur game designer I still am a Design professional, and what got me into the hobby is my interest in the design process itself.
I've started writing down some thoughts on the subject, taking my half-baked game as a reference to talk about how I do design and specially how I've adapted my design process for boargames.
I hope it is of use for some of you, at least to get you to think about your own process and what tools and methods do you use and which one could you incorporate.