A birthday comes back every year on a date you already know. That makes it a good place to start a habit of writing to yourself, rather than a single letter. Each letter can answer the one before it, and after a few years you have a record of how you changed.
Why birthdays suit a letter
Read one letter alone and it is a snapshot. Read five in a row and a pattern appears, such as a worry that comes back every spring.
A birthday also gives the letter a reason to exist: you are writing to the person who will be looking back at this birthday from the next one.
Choose which birthday it will reach
The simplest version is a loop. Write on the morning of your birthday and choose the one-year option, which lands on your next birthday. When that letter comes, write the next one the same day. The service sends no reminders, so the arriving letter becomes the reminder.
If you are writing on another day, the quick options will not land on your birthday, because they count from today. Use the date picker and choose the exact day instead. You can choose any date from tomorrow up to 20 years ahead, so a birthday you are not writing on, or one five or ten years off, works the same way.
We email the letter on that day, between 8:00 and noon in your time zone. It will not come at midnight, and you do not choose the minute, so think of it as a birthday-morning letter rather than a midnight one.
Round birthdays can take a second letter. If you are turning 40, write the usual letter for 41 and a longer one for 50. The yearly letters keep the thread. The ten-year letter shows the whole stretch at once.
Rotate four prompts
Four prompts work well in rotation. Lead each year's letter with one prompt, then answer the other three in a sentence or two. The prompts are:
- What has changed since last year?
- What are you proud of, even if it is small?
- What are you curious about now?
- What do you want to ask your future self?
Lead with a different prompt each year: change, pride, curiosity, a question. If a year calls for a different order, follow the year.
Each prompt works best with a concrete answer. For change, name three things: a job you started, a habit you dropped, and a person you stopped seeing. For pride, name one thing you did that you would not have done a year earlier.
For curiosity, pick one topic you keep coming back to. For a question, ask one thing you want to know by next year, and be ready for the answer to be “not yet”.
Small additions for any year
Some readers like to add one or two lighter lines. These fit almost any birthday letter:
- Name the song you played most this year.
- Describe the room you are sitting in right now.
- Name one person you are glad you met.
- List one thing you finished and one you started.
Keep these optional. If you only have ten minutes, a short paragraph is plenty.
Read last year's letter first
Before you write, open last year's letter. Read it once, slowly, and notice what it asked. Answer one of those questions in the new letter, even if the honest answer is that nothing has changed.
This step is what turns a set of letters into a conversation. Without it, each letter starts from scratch, and the series loses its thread.
Suppose last year's question was whether a routine would stick. This year's answer can be one honest sentence. It might read, “It slowed down in winter, and I let it.” A short answer is enough, and it gives the next letter something to build on.
If this is your first birthday letter, skip this step and write the first one now. The next birthday will give you something to read.
Keep the letters together
The success message gives a Letter ID, not the text, so keep your own copy of each one. Save the text in one folder, note or document named for the series. Put the delivery date at the top of each entry.
We email each letter on its birthday, one at a time. The folder is where they sit side by side. Add a photo of the cake, the list of songs, or nothing at all.
Some people keep paper copies in a drawer, and others keep a note on a phone or computer. Either works. What matters is that you can find the letters in ten years, so choose a place you already check, and write that place down in the first entry.
You cannot edit a letter once it is scheduled, so reread it before you finish. Fix the typos and the wrong dates now, because later changes are not possible on the site.
A sample birthday letter
Here is a short letter for a 35th birthday. It opens by answering last year's question.
Dear future me,
Last year I asked whether the Saturday pottery class would last past March. It did not. The class moved across town, I let it go, and I miss the clay more than I expected. Proud of this year: I skipped the big birthday dinner and had pancakes with two friends instead. Curious about: whether anyone still sends paper cards. My question for thirty-six: have you found another thing to do with your hands? Song of the year, for the record: the one my neighbor plays through the wall every Friday.
[your name]
The sample answers last year's question honestly, even though the answer is no, then names one small proud moment, one curiosity and one question for next year. The song is the light line at the end. To adapt it, swap the pottery class for whatever you asked about last year, and keep the order or change it as the year asks.
Write it now
If you have last year's letter, reread it first and answer one of its questions. Then lead with one prompt from the list, choose the exact date of the birthday you want it to reach, and copy the letter into your folder before you save it.
