Write a Letter to Your Future Self
August 27, 2007
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Two days ago I came across a site called Future Me. You fill out a form with your email address, the subject of the message, the message body, and the date to send the email. You can also choose if it’s private or public (but anonymous). If it’s private, it won’t be added to the gallery of nameless emails that people have written to their future selfs (which you can go and read any time, they’re awfully interesting).
If you don’t understand the point of the site, basically you go and write a message to yourself, and it will be delivered to your email on the date you set. For example, you can write a message today and have it sent to yourself in six months, a year, or even ten years from now.
Future Me is fantastic and can be used for many things. You can write about awesome memories that you think you might forget, and have it sent to yourself. You can write your current expectations for how you hope to be in a certain amount of years, and after all those years have passed you can see how you turned out. Any way, it’ll be a huge surprise when you get the email because you wouldn’t remember or be expecting it.
Another way you can use Future Me is to write a message to yourself in six months. Write how your blog is currently going, and where you expect it to be in six months. Write where you hope your statistics and rankings to be, and any goals you hope to accomplish. After the six months are up the forgotten email will arrive, put a smile on your face, and let you see how far you’ve come along the blogging road. Who knows, maybe today you’ll be a beginning blogger and in six months you could be the next John Chow! ;)
So far I’ve used it to write about my life and to encourage myself in the future. I’ve actually written four messages, dated between the next four years. It’ll be interesting to read something I’ve written to my own self years ago.
But I also plan to write an email specific to blogging and list all the expectations I have, and how I’m doing. In six months the email will come to my inbox and I can remember and compare. And after six months, I’ll write a post sharing how I’ve done (if I can still remember I made that promise).
Have you ever used Future Me before? If this is the first you’ve heard of it, do you plan to use it, and how? :)
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Comments
7 Responses to “Write a Letter to Your Future Self”
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I think it’s a great idea, the only thing I don’t like about it is that they turn it into a book and try to sell the emails you wrote to yourself. The concept is great though. I remember when I was in elementary school every kid that went to school had to write a letter about what they did that day. The were gonna save all the letters for the future.
Sandra - Remember how I mentioned you can make the letters private or public (but anonymous)? The public ones get put anonymously into the gallery, and only the public ones are published in the book (and only IF they’re immensely interesting). If you don’t want to be published in the book, just make your letter private. :)
It’s a pretty cool idea, but it’s not new or anything. I’ve used this in the past in the form of a good old fashioned journal or letters. I like that the idea has gone electronic though, because it is great to see progression in your life of goals and other disciplines.
Yes, it’s been around for a few years, but I thought I’d mention it because many people still don’t know about it and it’s a great tool to see where you are now with your blog, and then compare later on. Thanks for commenting. :)
Oh wow, genius idea! This takes calendars and tasks to the next level. I think it would be so motivating to get a letter from myself kicking my butt to reach goals.
I’ll probably tell myself to get myself a Zippo when I reach around 60. But seriously, I love the concept.
What would I tell myself? Hmm, good question. I guess it’s important to have goals now, so that in 6 months to a year, I’d know if I’m progressing. I’ll probably write myself a letter to buy a planner.