A five-year letter is easy to start, and it is worth finishing. You can write a first draft in an afternoon. What follows is a method you can work through in order, with a sample letter to adapt.
Why five years is a useful distance
Five years is a good distance: long enough for real change to happen, and close enough that you will still recognize the person who opens the email.
Five years is long enough to:
- Change jobs, cities or the people you see every day
- Finish a course, a project or a worry that has been running for months
- Find out which of today's goals you still care about
Hershfield's 2011 review in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences suggests people are more willing to help their later self when that self feels similar, vivid and positive. It is a review, not a single experiment, so read it as a useful idea rather than proof.
A five-year letter is a chance to make that later self feel more real. You do that with ordinary detail, not with grand statements.
Describe your life as it is now
The first step is the one most people rush past. Describe your life as it is now, in plain and concrete terms. Your future self does not need a summary. They need the small things you would otherwise forget.
Compare two lines. “Are you happy at work?” invites a shrug. “Is the coffee in the break room still terrible?” invites a memory. Aim for the second kind of question, and answer it in your own words.
Home and people
Write where you live, who shares the place with you, and the friend you call most often. Use first names or nicknames, as you would in a note to a friend. Add one sentence about what you did together last month.
Work and routine
Write your job title, the bus or train you take, and the hour you usually start. Name one thing about the work that you actually enjoy. Name the apps and shops you use this month too, because those will probably have changed by then.
Worries and small pleasures
Write one worry that feels heavy right now, in a single sentence. Then write one small pleasure you would miss if it disappeared, such as a song you keep playing or a walk you take after dinner. Keep this section short and honest.
Set a timer for ten minutes and write one paragraph under each heading. A rough description is more useful than a polished one.
Name what you hope will be true
Hopes are different from forecasts. A forecast says what will happen; a hope says what you want, and leaves room for the future to surprise you.
Compare “You will be promoted by then” with “You hope the work still feels like yours.” The first is a bet. The second is a wish you can check against your life later.
Write your hopes as full sentences in your own voice. Stop at seven. Keep the hopes that feel true, and cross out the ones that only sound impressive. You will notice that a few hopes keep coming back, and those are the ones to keep.
Ask your future self two or three questions
Questions are kinder than predictions. A question leaves the future open and asks for a real answer. Choose two or three from this list, or write your own:
- What did the hard year teach you, and who helped?
- Which worry from today turned out smaller than it felt?
- What are you still curious about?
- Did the choice you were stuck on turn out to be worth it?
Write each question on its own line and leave a little space under it. You are not asking for answers today. You are setting up a conversation that your future self can finish.
A sample letter you can adapt
Here is a short letter from someone who has just started a new job and is unsure about a move. Change the details so they match your own life.
Dear future me,
I started the new job in March, and I still do not know whether the move was the right call. The commute is long. The team is kind, and the coffee in the break room is terrible. I miss my old street more than I expected.
By the time you read this, I hope the city fits you better. I hope [friend's name] is still someone you talk to. I hope you still take the long way home, even if the route has changed.
Two questions. Was the commute worth it? And what did you learn about yourself that you could not see from here?
[your name]
The sample describes today with small details, names three hopes, and ends with two questions. Replace every line with your own.
Choose a date and keep a copy
Five years is not one of the quick presets. The presets stop at three years, so pick a specific date five years from now. The earliest date you can pick is tomorrow, and the latest is 20 years ahead.
On that day, the service emails the letter to you between 8:00 and noon in your time zone. You do not choose the exact minute. Once the day comes, the email usually arrives within a few minutes of the time the service picks inside that window.
Before you write, keep a few facts in mind. The first letter from each browser needs a 6-digit code sent by email, and the code lasts 15 minutes. Nothing is sent when you write the letter, and you cannot edit or cancel it on the site. Letters are stored as plain text on the server.
So keep anything very sensitive out of the letter. Save your own copy as well, in a note or a folder, and write down the delivery date. The service gives you the ID, not a copy of the letter.
If you prefer to write from Chrome, the extension uses the same service and the same steps. Its interface is in 52 languages; the emails themselves are in English.
Write it now
Set a timer for twenty minutes and describe today first. Add one hope, two questions and a date five years away. Then save a copy somewhere you can find it, and check the delivery date once more before you finish.
