RT Wolf: Great idea! I'll try that myself!
A few others. They're pretty off-the-wall, but at least consider them before tossing them out the window. They may spark ideas for you.
- Most collectable card games have a strategy aspect to them, and so are effectively a resource-management game. I've often wished I were better at resource-management games in real life. I'm only familiar with Magic: The Gathering, but others should work as well.
- Roleplaying games, although usually frequented by the extremely-off-their-rocker crowd, are actually a very good way to stimulate creative thinking. They also give you an opportunity to try things you're too scared to try in real life. In one campaign, my character manifested a million dollars (silver) in about 3 weeks. Now this is a roleplaying game, where the link between intention and manifestion is pretty clear, since it really is a subjective reality. But I could see exactly how it happened, and the strategy would have worked had I met that situation in real life. So it gave me a lot more confidence that I could actually learn to generate money.
- Memorize a poem, or a book, or a book of poems, or a play. Start at whatever level you feel comfortable at, but if you keep working at it bit by bit, you should be able to memorize anything you'd like. Use it for something you'd like to always have available to you (like your favorite book of the Bible, or Think and Grow Rich) or for something you'd like to use to impress others (like Shakespeare's Hamlet).
Just posting my thoughts.