Exercises, Warm-Ups and Having Fun

I have been struggling lately in finding time, energy, will-power, etc. to compose.  Dealing with this frustration and a desire to move on soon to grad school, I've been pondering what's been inhibiting me from composing.  Several different things have come to mind:
1) I've been trying to compose often when I get home from work after working sometimes more than 8 hours.  I'm too tired by this point to want to do much but sit back and not do anything.
2) I've been working on official pieces, ones that I'm hoping to use for grad school, and there has been too much pressure to get them all "perfect," each one needing to be a masterpiece.

Several solutions have come to mind:
1) Work in the morning when I'm not tired and I still have energy left to compose;
2) Spend time pondering as I'm going about my day about what needs to come next on certain pieces; and (most importantly)
3) Spend time every composition session (hopefully this will turn out to be every day) just warming up like I do when I practice:  do exercises, try stuff out, and especially have fun.

To help carry these three things out, it is now early in the morning, and I am about to just do some different warm-up pieces to try and compose different feelings with an orchestra.  This won't be anything that will likely to turn into an actual piece, so there's no pressure to "get it right," or get it perfect as I write, just a chance to have fun and experiment with what effect I can get from an orchestra.  A post will follow with the results of the mornings efforts.

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