Amazon is famous for it's practice of writing a press release for a product or a feature even before a single line of code is written towards building it. 

The idea behind this is to encourage product managers to think vividly about what problems the feature being envisioned would solve for the customer and how the customers would perceive it. 

Im currently reading 'The Art of Possibility', in which the author talks about a similar exercise he gave his students for one of the courses. At the start of the course, the students were told that they would all be given an 'A' grade in the course, provided they turn in an essay that is dated at the end of the course and mentions in as much detail as possible what they would have done by then to deserve the 'A'.

This is the Amazon Press Release technique applied to the personal level.

We could all benefit from such an exercise. Especially when we embark upon something new in our lives.