James Altucher in his Things I learned from Richard Branson blog post, talks about what he calls “idea subtraction”. He removes any perceived obstacles he may encounter when pursuing an idea. He then finds that he is left with more possibilities:

I call this IDEA SUBTRACTION. Subtract the perceived obstacles to an idea and (BAM!) you find that many more ideas are born from that.

I prefer to call this “obstacle subtraction”.

The next time you are faced with some obstacles, think about what you could do if these obstacles didn’t exist. What would be your next move?