New Year letter to self: how to write it and not open early

Every December has the same scene. The last days of the year, a to-do list that refuses to shrink, and somewhere in between a thought that you really should look back on the year. A New Year letter to self turns that thought into half an hour of actual writing. You write it on New Year's Eve, seal it, and open it exactly a year later, on the next December 31. Then you compare: what came true, what changed, and how different the person reading it has become.

There's already a general template for any time span in a letter to your future self: an example and a template. This is the New Year version. It has its own date, its own half about the year behind you, and its own hard part: making it to December without peeking.

Why December 31 works

In 2014 Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis tested whether people really take on goals more readily after special dates, or whether that's just January folklore. They looked at three kinds of data: Google searches for "diet", gym visits, and commitments on a website where people set goals for themselves. All three rose after temporal landmarks: the start of a week, a month, a year, a birthday, a holiday.

After temporal landmarks (a new week, month or year, a birthday, a holiday), searches for "diet", gym visits and goal commitments all went up. The authors called it the fresh start effect.

Their explanation: a landmark splits time into periods, the way accounting splits a year into quarters. Past slip-ups stay in the old period, and it gets easier to look at your life as a whole instead of at yesterday. New Year's is the loudest landmark of all, which is why a letter written that night reads differently from one written on a Tuesday in March.

The same study holds a consolation. If December 31 doesn't happen, a birthday or the first of any month will do. New Year's is simply the most convenient fresh start.

Year-end reflection first: questions to ask yourself

Half of a New Year letter looks back. Without that half it turns into a list of resolutions, and everyone writes those in January.

Look back at the ordinary, not the big moments. In 2014 Ting Zhang, Tami Kim, Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino and Michael Norton asked people to make a "time capsule": write down a few ordinary things from their lives right now and predict how interesting it would be to read them later. When participants opened the capsules months later, they found them more interesting than they had predicted.

People underestimate how interesting it will be to rediscover records of their past, and they underestimate ordinary, everyday moments most of all. The reason is misplaced faith that everyday life will stay in memory anyway.

So nearly all the year-end reflection prompts below are about everyday life:

1. What was new in January and had become ordinary by December? A job, a neighborhood, a person, a habit.
2. Which day of the year do you want to remember, even though nothing happened? One day, with details.
3. What turned out harder than expected, and what easier?
4. Who was around the most? Not necessarily people: a cat, a podcast, a coffee shop.
5. What did you manage to let go of this year?
6. Which plans from last December didn't happen, and do you mind? Sometimes an honest "I don't" is the most useful answer on the list.

Fifteen minutes is enough for all six. Put the answers into the letter in full or pick out what matters.

Writing the New Year letter to self, in three parts

Where I am now. Two or three sentences from your reflection: what this year was about and what fills your head right now.

What to check in a year. One to three intentions, no more. The wording matters here, and there's a large study on exactly that.

In an experiment with 1,066 participants, 55% considered themselves successful in keeping their New Year's resolutions a year later. Goals framed as starting something worked better than goals framed as stopping something: 58.9% versus 47.1%.

So instead of "stop scrolling in the evenings", try "read for twenty minutes in the evenings". Instead of "stop snapping at work", try "step outside when I start to boil over". A year later, an intention written as an action is easy to check: it either happened or it didn't.

An older study suggests that writing an intention down already counts for something. In 2002 John Norcross and colleagues spent six months phoning people who had made New Year's resolutions, and people who also wanted to change but planned to start "some other time". At six months, 46% of the first group were still on track, against 4% of the second. The sample was small and participants rated their own success, so don't treat it as proof that resolutions work. But the gap is too wide to ignore.

One more caveat: the letter isn't a contract. If a year from now an intention didn't happen, that's an answer too, and there's no reason to beat yourself up over it. Why a missed day shouldn't erase everything you've done is covered in the piece on a habit tracker without punishment.

What not to forget. The last paragraph is about tonight: what's outside the window, what's on the table, who called. A year from now that detail is what brings the whole day back.

An example

This letter is made up, but the shape is the one that works.

December 31, the kitchen. Next door the neighbors already have a holiday movie on, loud enough to hear every line.

Where I am now: this year was about work. New role since March, and I still feel like everyone is about to notice I'm in over my head. Best day of the year was some Tuesday in July: the power went out and the whole evening happened on the balcony by candlelight.

What to check: Saturdays without the laptop. Call Grandma once a month, for no reason. Start running in spring, we'll see.

What not to forget: the clementines were sour this year, the string lights only work on one half, and I can't be bothered to fix them.

A year from now you'll want to read the middle part first. But what you'll remember is probably the string lights.

How not to open it early

This is the real challenge of a New Year letter. In January it's fresh and you don't want to open it. By summer you get curious, and by autumn you're tempted to take just a quick look. A letter read before its date turns back into text you remember, and by December there's nothing left in it to surprise you.

So the deadline has to be held by someone other than you. Give a paper envelope to a friend with the date on the back. Schedule an email to yourself. Or use an app that hides the text until the day comes.

Set the date to next December 31 rather than January 1. That turns it into a one-evening ritual: read last year's letter, then write the next one straight away.

If the year was a hard one

You don't have to review anything. Some years end with an honest letter that is a single line: "This year was really hard. I hope you're reading this somewhere better." That is enough. A year later, that line might turn out to be the most important one in the whole pile.

The holidays can be lonely, and that's normal. But if thoughts of not wanting to live show up during these days, a letter to your future self is no substitute for talking to someone. You can find a free support line in your country at findahelpline.com.