Designers, how much time do you spend looking up resources and finding inspiration?

It really depends on the project. Some projects don't even need to look up for sources and get some inspiration ; the inspiration is just there in your mind, It pops out and you can Immediately start working on the design. Some designs especially when getting into commercial works are the opposite. You need to work on finding sources and getting inspirations from magazines from the Internet from the sketches that you have previously drawn from your other projects from the values of the company that you're doing the design for etc... Once the idea is somehow made, and you know what you want to do you start looking for the design resources on the Internet like some vectors or stock images or videos and stuff like that... Usually the creation of the idea itself takes a lot of time. Finding the resources on the internet is not that hard.

I would argue that it depends highly on the project. A) This is probably the most variable part. Currently living in the US, it gets extremely tricky to request files or data from some clients back home in Germany already because of the time difference. Usually their workday is almost over when hit the peak of my work time. Reading guidelines or descriptions does take some time, but usually not that much. Have to say that I have not yet been part of majorly complex projects that included a ton of guidelines. If searching source files means looking for typefaces and maybe stock imagery... that takes up almost as much time as the actual execution. B) Sometimes I am given instructions and my inspiration is right there. Time taken: almost one. Sometimes I have no idea where to even start and it might take me 3-4 hours to sift through old project sketches, look at some books, and ideally talk to some people who's opinion I value. In severe cases it can take even longer, but luckily that doesn't happen too often.