One day. Ten years from now.

Setting long term goals through imagination.

‘So, let’s say it’s Summer 2027. What does your life look like? What are you doing? Where are you living? Who are you living with? Do you have pets? What kind of house are you in? Are you in the city, or are you in the country? What does your furniture look like? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have? How about your career. What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making? Write this day, this one day, ten years from now. Start from the minute you wake up, brush your teeth, have your coffee or tea, all the way through until the minute you tuck yourself in at night. Dream big, without any fear. Write it all down. Write like your life depends on it. Because it does. And then read it, once a year, and see what happens.’

These aren’t my words (unfortunately). They belong to writer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the Design Matters podcast, Debbie Millman, and they refer to ‘Your Ten-Year Plan for a Remarkable Life’ — an affirmation exercise she discovered while being a student of the legendary Milton Glaser. I stumbled upon the concept, as it often happens, while listening to one of my favourite podcasters, Tim Ferris (Episode #214, ‘A life well designed’, to be precise), and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

I love the idea that the simple fact of imagining, and writing down, what your future might look like, could actually affect it (plus, I’ve always liked a bit of sci-fi), so I decided to have a go myself. Fast forward to July 2027…

6.45

Dzzz…, dzzz…, dzzz… the subtle buzz of my recently acquired ear-bit gently wakes me up. It’s Thursday, the 01st of July, 2027 and it must also be 6.45am because that’s when my aforementioned device usually decides I had enough sleep. A floor below I can hear the familiar sound of my younger daughter, Victoria (can’t believe she’s 17!), getting ready for school — unlike her older sister, she was never the quiet type. On the other hand, she does attend the same high-school as her sister did — The Graveney, in Tooting. Although attending school is quite a different concept in 2027. Most days she will get together with her friends at someone’s house and share a VR class.

It was a big deal the day going to school stopped meaning actually going to school, but you could clearly see it coming, especially when commuting to work started becoming frowned upon, ‘way too much productive time wasted, plus there’s the obvious environmental benefits’ the experts said.

Anyway, I digress, and the Graveney VR classes are considered some of the best in the country, so we’re very happy she got accepted. I must confess I wasn’t so sure 10 years ago. It was always so hard to get her interested in school back then. But as soon as her older sister (Alice, 24) left home for her nomadic work life, Victoria realised she didn’t have to be the rebel anymore.

Dzzz…, dzzz…, dzzz… my alarm goes off again. 3 mins must have passed (apparently that’s my ideal ‘snooze’ interval according to the ear-bit — not too long so I fall back asleep, but not so fast I feel pressured and become annoyed). AI has really come a long way, but I still find it scary. Time to leave bed and do my morning exercises. The ear-bit knows I’m somewhat tired from yesterday’s basketball game (still playing, if you can call it that), plus all the walking over the weekend, so today’s routine is probably going to take that into account and go easy on me — which usually makes me go the other way and push myself harder. Don’t like having a piece of code, no matter how smart, treat me like an old man. 50 is the new 30, right?

07.01

Wrong! Maybe 50 is the new 30, but apparently not 53. AI was right after all. Still, even if it wasn’t my best effort at least I’ve done it. Takes me back 10 years ago, to when I read the ‘Power of Habit’ and, slowly but surely, started re-designing my life. One cue, routine and reward at a time. Including a steady stream of exercise.

Time for a quick shower (as I watch basketball highlights on my shower TV — yes, I’ve finally bought one) and even quicker kisses to both my wife and daughter before I’m off. Today I’m being a rebel and actually going to the agency (I should stop calling it that, no one else does anymore). Funny how rebellion, as we approach mid 21st Century, is actually commuting to work!

07.53

I’ve never been an extrovert, despite feeling increasingly confident amongst other people as I got older, but I’ve always relished the intellectual back and forth with fellow creatives in the search for new ideas. So, here I am again, cycling the 2 miles that separate our house in Wimbledon (the 5th one we’ve owned in the South Park Gardens’ area… boring), from the Scandinavian simplicity of Netflix’s London offices, in Tooting, where I work as a part-time in-house Creative Director.

It’s been interesting to see the evolution of advertising agencies’ (there I go again!) locations — from Soho, to Shoreditch, to King’s Cross and finally to the new creative bohemia hunting ground that is South West London — namely Tooting. The truth is, looking back to 12, or 13 years ago when the gentrification started, you probably could have predicted it. But what was unexpected was how the Crossrail 2 ended up mainly moving people from the North to the South, accelerating the change. On top of that, the cheaper rents combined with the green expanse (forget Hackney Downs, Tooting Bec — or TB, as the kids call it nowadays— is where it’s at) sealed the deal. For us it’s been great as we’re now sitting on a small fortune just as we approach what used to be called ‘retirement age’. Result!

I love how my work routine changed in the past years. Splitting my time evenly between self-initiated projects and client work has had a huge impact in my happiness levels — as well as my creative productivity and output quality. Nothing beats the feeling of self-starting a project and seeing it grow and evolve. The freedom allows me to take risks, experiment with different types of media, collaborate with new people and most importantly, learn along the way — learnings that I then transfer into my commercial projects with great results. Plus, there is a certain respect that comes from being able to brings ideas to life on a regular basis, especially if you manage to make them consistently successful. If anything, I’ve realised there’s a certain science to it, and it has a lot to do with the metrics you create for yourself. Certain projects I do because I just want to try something new, so success becomes simply being able to do them, and — this is key — come out with a clear sense of what I learned in the process. I’ve also grown into the habit of being extremely OCD (nothing new there…) in how I capture, analyse and share each project and their correspondent stories. Which means that, even when it’s a story of failure, the acquired knowledge, if shared in an engaging way, will still be useful to other people.

Funnily enough, I can pinpoint precisely the project that sparked this way of thinking about my career. Tud Dret was an online platform created with a few close friends and born to support and tell the real stories, of real people, solving real problems through creativity and optimism. The first one was of a Cape Verdean construction worker named Alcindo, who had the brilliant idea of transforming the rubbish he saw washing up on the shores of Santa Maria beach, Island of Sal, into what probably was the most beautiful gym in the world. It proved a huge success, and gave me the confidence needed to take personal projects more seriously.

It’s maybe a little wanky, but ‘idea entrepreneur’ is actually not a bad job description for what I do nowadays. It was always going to go that way anyway… if you wanted to have a future in the creative industries, being able to create your own content became not just a nice to have, but an essential skill. As brands started working more frequently with creators directly, you had to be able to compete and prove that you share the same skill set, with the added benefit of the branding experience you brought from all the years working in advertising. In this way you became a clear choice, as you were able to combine the best of both worlds.

Sadly, some of us (if not most) realised it too late and quickly fell of the radar — there’s way too many sad stories to tell. So far I’ve been able to stay competitive, but it has required discipline, hard-work and, very importantly, an understanding from my family that just carrying on as before was the biggest risk. We made a lot of uncomfortable decisions, that felt crazy and unsafe at the time, but proved to be the right ones in the long-run.

08.14

I’m parking my bike outside the office. My ear-bit knows this, and starts whispering in my ear what my day is going to look like (it sounds just like Alice, one of the options that made me go for it, as I rarely see her). The benefit of living nearby is that I arrive at work earlier, and therefore have some free time to finish reading a book while enjoying breakfast, or simply send someone close a morning message — I’m so much better at keeping in touch now…

09.07

I’m not a robot, so these times are approximate. But sometime around 9 is when I like to start working. I’ve always been a morning person, so I try to make sure I devote this time to everything creative. Today, I need to finish a client presentation. The meeting is this afternoon, and it’s all pretty much done, but I like reserving some free time to give these things one final look. Countless times a great idea popped up at the last minute and made all the difference. Ear-bit… music on!

10.03

Now, for what is still my favourite part of this job, sitting down with another creative mind and try to come up with solutions for problems. Most of the client work I do is for global brands. I kind of fell into global comms without necessarily planning for it — I actually resisted it for a while, thinking it was always going to be too hard to do anything decent when the whole world had to agree to an idea — but I’ve learned, through my own experience, that it doesn’t have to be that way. I also learned that my own mix of personality and work/life experience really suited that role perfectly, so I embraced it and never looked back. That focus really helped catapult the client side of my career. All of a sudden here was this thing that I was really good at, and knew how to talk about as well. Bingo…

12.39

Off for a walk in the common. Got into this lunchtime habit a while back, after I got my first step tracker (the ancestor to the ear-bit). It started as a simple attempt to walk a certain number of steps per day and stay healthy. But I soon realised that having a mid-day moment to reflect really helped solidify all those thoughts that keep flying around your head as you go from meeting to meeting, and brief to brief. I don’t manage to do it everyday, but my ear-bit has become quite good at finding slots in my schedule.

13.00

Back to the office, lunch in hand. I usually eat at my desk, which I know isn’t necessarily the right thing to do, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. Plus I end up blocking the time to accomplish those boring day-to-day things that you don’t really need to think that much about. They’re also easier to do if you’re enjoying some nice food at the same time.

13.48

Time for my daily after lunch, coffee fuelled, writing session. Another habit I managed to create for myself over the last 10 years:

1. Cue: the craving for some kind of dessert and/or sweetness after a meal.
2. Routine: sitting down with a nice latte and my laptop in a nearby coffee shop (as you might imagine, Tooting is now crammed with those)
3. Reward: a piece of writing + a nice, frothy, warm drink = habit created!

Such a simple, but powerful, change. These daily 30mins provide me with a nice, steady stream of content that I publish regularly. An easy process that helps me to think clearly about how I approach my personal and commercial projects. A fair amount of opportunities have arrived through this simple sharing of knowledge and experience.

15.00

Yep, it’s time for another client meeting. Still my least favourite part of the job, but one I’ve learned to embrace as key to creating anything decent. Interestingly, the more confident I grew, the more I realised I should just be myself — honest, open and polite. Most times that works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s life. I prefer if people like me for who I am, and my work for what it is. No need to complicate things.

17.16

Tonight I’m using our own photography studio to create a series of images in collaboration with a photographer friend. We’re shooting a few different families with the cameras that were launched on the year they were born — so, an old analog LeicaM camera for grandad and a brand new smartphone camera for baby, for example. It should make for an interesting project on how the tools we use affect the way we see ourselves. When I think about it, doing this kind of project regularly is really the main difference between my day to day of today, compared with what it was 10 years ago — and I love it.

This project will turn into an exhibition, with its very own online presence (private views are as much a physical experience, as they are a virtual one, nowadays) and social media narrative, plus a few different articles, maybe some interviews in the industry media (or mainstream media, if it turns out as great as we’d like it), eventually even a talk. Ideas feeding ideas…

19.51

As it often happens, I got lost in the process and stayed later than I wanted, so my youngest daughter joined me on the way home from a nearby friend’s house. We ended up using the cameras to take a variety of portraits of both of us (grandparents’ Christmas presents sorted then).

20.23

We finally get home. I can hear Paula (my wife) having a shower upstairs. I imagine she’s just arrived from her usual evening run. I prepare something quick and simple for both of us to eat (although I tried a few different times, I never really managed to get into cooking) while Victoria disappears to her bedroom, and is probably already holo-ing one of her boyfriends (apparently she’s currently down to three). I still find home-holos creepy. It’s completely different from anything you’d expect growing up watching sci-fi films. Only the holo-er can actually see the hologram so, for anyone watching, it simply looks like there’s a crazy person in front you talking to a ghost — freaky!

22.13

We go to bed early today. Paula is on a red-eye flight to Lisbon tomorrow morning and wants to make sure she gets a few hours sleep. We both spend a fair amount of time in Portugal nowadays, but Paula even more so because of her job (she consults for tech start-ups coming out of Portugal, Brazil and Portuguese speaking African countries). After Brexit, a lot of young people left London, especially in the creative and tech industries.

The un-affordability of the city combined with how complicated it became to travel in and out of the UK meant that re-location was inevitable for a new generation of British and European young professionals. On the other hand Lisbon offered amazing weather, reasonable prices and a very open and welcoming culture that proved irresistible for a lot of people. Plus, all the advancements in communication technologies I mentioned earlier, made it much easier for anyone to work and live remotely.

23.06

…and I’m still awake. Doing what I always do. Trying, and mostly failing, to tie any lose ends before falling asleep. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last 10 years, is that life should be lived one; day; at; a; time. Some days will be horrible, others great, but as long as the the former outnumber the latter, you’ll be ok — and today was one of the good ones. Night, night…