Guide · 3 minute read

A letter to your future self: lines you'll read a year from now

How much of today will you remember a year from now? The song you had on repeat, what upset you, what you were looking forward to... Most of it fades. A letter to your future self is the simplest way to keep those small things: you write it today, and a year later it finds you.

Why write to yourself?

Writing to yourself can feel odd; after all, you already know you. But the you of next year will remember today's you less than you think. When you open the letter, you'll meet a voice you'd forgotten: a little familiar, a little strange.

Most people smile while reading it. Sometimes they see that a worry came to nothing, and sometimes they only then notice how far they've come.

What to write

Don't reach for big sentences. The best letters are full of ordinary things: what you had for breakfast, who you miss, the last photo on your phone, what makes you laugh these days.

Then look inward a little. Is something worrying you? Is there something you hope will have happened a year from now? Writing it down is a way of telling your future self: "look, this is where you came from."

Leave yourself a few questions

At the end of the letter you can leave a few questions for your future self. "Do you still love that song?", "Did you move?", "Did you ever finish that book?" Only you will know the answers on that day, and that turns reading the letter into a small conversation.

When should it arrive?

A year is the most common choice. But a month is lovely too: even a short gap surprises you. A letter that arrives on your birthday feels like a small gift, and one that arrives at New Year carries a hello from the year before.

You can also choose something longer: five years, ten years. The longer you wait, the more will have changed by the time you read it.

The pleasure of waiting

Once you've written and sent the letter, the idea is to forget it. That's the best part. When one morning you find an envelope from your past self, you won't quite remember what you wrote; you'll discover it again as you read.

Writing to yourself on Letterbird

On Letterbird you can write to yourself from the hourglass card on the Write screen. Pick your paper, envelope and stamp, then choose when it should arrive: in a month, six months, a year, on your birthday, at New Year or on any date you like.

Until then the letter waits, locked, in Sent; not even you can open it. On the day, it lands in your mailbox in the morning, and a copy goes to your verified email address. No account? You can leave a letter for your own inbox at post.letterbird.app.

The end of the year is a good place to start

As a year winds down, we look back anyway. Taking a few minutes on one of these evenings to write to yourself in 2027 is a lovely way to put those thoughts somewhere. A year later, on the same days, you'll read them again.

Write to yourself today

Pick a sheet of paper, fit today into a few lines and send your letter into the future. Time will take care of the rest.