1,000 Ideas and a 10-Year Plan

Since I was about thirteen years old, I kept a running list of good ideas. I’m forty right now, so that’s almost thirty years of ideas.

At its height, the list had over a thousand ideas. After some honing and pruning, it now stands at 647.

Now, all of these ideas were “good” ideas at the time I wrote them down, but of course, technology and perspectives change as we get older. Many of the ideas that seemed like good ideas when I was a teenager clearly look like bad ideas to me now.

By many definitions, I’m in my middle age now. I have a mortgage and a family. I’m saving for my kids’ college and planning an early retirement, hopefully around the time my kids all go off to college and leave me with an empty nest. That’s in a little more than ten years.

So the question I ask myself is, “how do I avoid regrets when I reflect on my life ten years from now?”

My answer is, “Over the next ten years, put every good idea I’ve ever had into action. All 647. Every. Single. One.”

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Let’s do some math.

In 10 years, there are 120 months.

In 10 years, there are 520 weeks.

As it turns out, 120 + 520 = 640… which is so close to 647.

So here’s the plan. Each month, I will find one of the best ideas from the list and get working on it. I will dedicate the entire month to that one “best idea.”

At the beginning of each week, Sunday, I will find one of the dumbest or “unimplementable” ideas from the list and work on it just for the day.

You might be wondering, “what if the idea takes longer than a day or a month to implement?” I do have some ideas like “write a fantasy novel series where the world is…” I know I can’t finish writing a 400-page epic fantasy novel in one month, much less an entire series.

The solution lies in MVP. Minimum Viable Product. Instead of writing an entire fantasy novel series, I can at least outline the whole series and perhaps publish a series of short stories based on the ideas. That way, I get to put the ideas into action and get it out there. Who knows? It might get a lot of traction. Or, more likely, nobody will care and I’ll hear crickets.

Being a writer also helps. Sometimes the MVP is simply an article describing the idea in detail or a short story that captures the essence of the series of novels I have in mind. For my ideas for non-fiction books, the MVP might be a PDF or long blog post. The point is to develop each idea with vigor, then move on.

If I worked on 120 major projects for a month each, I will surely find a winner. My ultimate goal behind this 10-year project is to move on to the second half of my life without regrets of not having pursued something. With luck, I may even find a winner early on and be able to retire sooner than ten years from now. With even more luck, I may ignite a passion that provides meaning (and wealth) for the rest of my life.

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The main obstacle I face in following through with my Ten Year Project is, “what if I become so engrossed in a project that I want to spend more than a month doing it?”

Well, that may not be bad news. It may derail the Ten Year Project way before ten years, but on the upside, I would have found a passion. I would be happy either way.

Going forward, I’ll post my work on the “good” ideas somehow in the StormShock Media realm of websites (I haven’t figured out how this will work yet). I’ll post all the “bad” ideas at StormShock Ideas (they’re not necessarily bad. I just either can’t or don’t want to work on them for some reason).

If you’re intrigued by this idea, I would be curious to hear from you in the comments. What does your Ten Year Project look like?