If you had absolutely no worries about money, and no fear, what are ten things you would do this week?

Almost a decade ago, I read a book Become An Idea Machine by Claudia Azula Altucher. It’s an exercise book with questions and prompts to work your creative muscles to help you come up with more ideas on a regular basis.

It’s a good book and it helped me get better at brainstorming but no exercise has been more impactful on my life than the one number 66: If you had absolutely no worries about money, and no fear, what are ten things you would do this week?

I keep returning to it regularly and I keep recommending it as an exercise to people when I talk with them.

I often find we define our opportunities through the restrictions (real or imaginary). I’ve met my fair share of people of different professions who’d always start with the “It would be nice but we don’t have the resources”. It’s understandable.

I find that if we want to explore opportunities and possibilities outside the box of our daily grind, we need to think about things we might not be able to fully achieve.

Crucially, we need to make those thoughts tangible. It’s so easy to think in abstract and then never do anything about it because abstract isn’t achievable and it’s not actionable.

I love this exercise because it sets the perfect boundaries (or lack of them) from the start: if you had no worries about money and no fear. Be bold, think big, dream and make plans for the impossible.

You can do it for your professional stuff, organisational goals or personal life.

A second iteration

Over the years, I’ve changed this exercise a bit. Here’s what I do and love to tell others to do:

1. Draw a weekly calendar view on a paper. Split it to days and hours or sections of the day. Just like we did when we went to school as kids.
2. Write down practical, detailed things of how you’d like to fill those days. When would you wake up? Where would you wake up? What would your morning routine look like: do you want to read the newspaper or check your RSS reader with a cup of coffee in the porch — or do you prefer getting up early, taking a cold shower and running for a few kilometers to get yourself pumped up for the day? How would you schedule your days: what would you do for work (or would you?) and hobbies? Would you spend time learning or contributing to the community? Spending time with the family? Be specific.

I find that often through these exercises, we start to notice small things that are actually possible but we never thought of them as such because the big picture maybe unreachable. If you prefer long, slow mornings, maybe you can adjust your work to accommodate for that or prioritise that when searching for the next job.