How to write a letter to your future self.

1. Fix the letter in time

Open with the boring facts: the date, where you're writing from, what the last week has been like. It reads as filler now and as evidence later.

Future-you won't need reminding of the big events. They'll need reminding of the texture — the commute, the flat, the person you kept meaning to call.

2. Say the true thing early

Write the sentence you'd be slightly embarrassed to read aloud. That's the letter. Everything else is context around it.

Nobody is marking this. There's no audience but you, and you already know.

Honestly? I'm frightened I've made the wrong choice.

3. Ask questions you can't answer yet

Questions turn a letter into a conversation. They also give future-you something to do besides feel nostalgic.

• Did it work out? Was the worry justified?
• Are you still in touch with them?
• What did you end up spending this year on?
• Did you keep the habit? The job? The promise?
• What would you tell me now, if you could write back?

4. Prompts if you're stuck

• A normal Tuesday, described in detail.
• What's currently on your kitchen table.
• Who you'd call first with good news.
• The thing you're avoiding.
• What you're better at than you were a year ago.
• A conversation you keep replaying.
• The price of something ordinary.
• What you hope hasn't changed.
• Something you're grateful for and haven't said.
• How you want to be described in five years.

5. Choose the date carefully

One year is long enough to be surprising. Five years changes the genre entirely — you'll be a different person receiving it.

Anchor it to something real if you can: the morning of a birthday, the start of a school year, the anniversary of the day you wrote it.

6. Don't edit it afterwards

The value is in the version written by someone who didn't know the ending. Seal it, schedule it, and leave it alone.

Then write the next one next year. A sequence is worth more than any single letter.