Prompts
How to Record a Video Message to Your Future Self
What to say, how far ahead to aim it, and how to make sure it's still there to watch. Plus what the research on letters to a future self actually found, which is more interesting than the usual promises.
What's in this article
To record a video message to your future self: pick a date one to five years out, film three to five minutes in a place that matters to you, describe your ordinary life in specific detail, say what you're hoping for and worried about, and store the file somewhere you'll still have it. Then put the date in a calendar so you actually open it.
The ordinary detail is the part most people skip, and it's the part you'll most want back.
Why the ordinary details matter most
There's a direct study on this. In 2014, Ting Zhang and colleagues at Harvard had students make time capsules at the start of the summer: a recent conversation, a social event, songs they were listening to, part of an essay. They predicted how interesting they'd find each one later. When they opened the capsules three months on, they found them significantly more interesting than they'd predicted. In follow-up studies the underestimate was biggest for mundane experiences, not extraordinary ones.
The researchers tied this to overconfidence in memory. You assume you'll remember what an ordinary Tuesday was like, so you don't record it. You won't, which is why it's worth having.
Those capsules were written, and three months is a short horizon. But the lesson carries: your future self won't need you to explain the big events. They'll remember those. What they'll have lost is your kitchen, your commute, the song you couldn't stop playing and how you sounded.
What to say: prompts that age well
Five minutes is plenty. Pick three or four of these rather than all of them.
The ordinary stuff
- Walk the camera round the room you're in. Say what's in it.
- What does a normal weekday look like, start to finish?
- What are you reading, watching or listening to right now?
- Who do you see most often? What do you usually talk about?
- What does something ordinary cost — rent, a coffee, a bus fare?
Where you are
- What are you working on, and how does it feel?
- What's the thing you're most worried about this month?
- What's something you're proud of that nobody else noticed?
The future
- What are you hoping has changed by the time you watch this?
- What do you think you'll have stopped caring about?
- What should you not have given up on?
- Is there a question you want to ask yourself? Ask it on camera.
Close with a prediction. Say one specific thing you expect to be true when you watch this. Predictions are what make these recordings interesting later. People are notably bad at guessing how much they'll change: Quoidbach, Gilbert and Wilson (2013) found that people at every age expected to change much less over the next decade than they reported changing over the last one. Your prediction is a small test of that, with you as the subject.
How far ahead to send it
| Horizon | Works well for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| One year | A first try; New Year or a birthday; a goal you've just started | Change can feel small; the ordinary details still land |
| Three to five years | A move, a new job, finishing study, a new child | You need a storage plan that survives a phone or two |
| Ten years or more | Milestone birthdays, a message to someone you can't imagine yet | File formats, accounts and devices will change; keep several copies |
If you've never done one, start with a year. For shorter daily questions, use these video journal prompts instead. It's long enough for the ordinary details to surprise you and short enough that you'll still have the file and remember to open it.
What the research on future-self letters found
Letters to a future self have been studied, though not usually as videos, and not for the reasons time-capsule sites tend to give.
- Writing a reply seems to matter. In a study by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson, published in Self and Identity, students who wrote a letter to their future self and then wrote back as that future self reported more connection with their future self, more career planning and more willingness to delay gratification than students who only wrote the letter.
- Picturing a distant self changed choices. In van Gelder, Hershfield and Nordgren's 2013 study in Psychological Science, young adults who wrote to themselves 20 years ahead made fewer delinquent choices in a follow-up task than those who wrote to themselves three months ahead.
- Seeing your older self shifted saving. Hershfield and colleagues (2011) showed people age-progressed renderings of their own faces; in their studies, those people chose to put more money aside for retirement in hypothetical decisions.
None of these studies tested a video message, and their outcomes were measured over short periods, in labs or online tasks. They're evidence that thinking concretely about your future self can shift how you feel and choose in the short term, not that a recording will change your life. The Chishima and Wilson result does suggest a cheap upgrade, though: after you record the message, record a short reply as the person you imagine watching it.
Keeping it watchable in five years
The commonest way these messages fail isn't bad content. It's that the file is gone.
- Make more than one copy. Keep one on your phone and put another on a drive or in a cloud folder you control. Phones get lost and replaced; accounts get closed.
- Keep it in a common format. An ordinary MP4 from your phone is a safe bet. The H.264 video inside most of them is an open standard that the Library of Congress rates as well supported for playback.
- Name the file with both dates, recorded and to-be-opened:
2026-10-29_open-2027-10-29.mp4. - Put the opening date in a calendar with a note about where the file is.
- Keep it private if it's honest. If the message says things you wouldn't post, don't leave it in a camera roll that syncs everywhere. There's a guide to storing a private video diary with the trade-offs.
Services like FutureMe, which started in 2002, will email you a written letter on a date you choose. That solves the reminder, but puts your message on someone else's server and assumes your email address and their service both last. A local copy and a calendar entry are less elegant and more reliable.
A message, or a journal?
A single message to your future self is a snapshot. A short entry every day, or every week, is a film, and it answers a question a snapshot can't: not just where were you, but how did you get here. If you like the idea of watching the past catch up with you, that's the case for keeping a video diary rather than one message.
FAQ
What should I say in a video message to my future self?
Describe your ordinary life in specific detail — your room, your routine, what you're listening to — then say what you're hoping for and worried about, and finish with one concrete prediction. A 2014 study of time capsules found people most underestimate how interesting they'll find mundane details later.
How long should a video message to your future self be?
Three to five minutes is plenty. Long enough for some ordinary detail and a few honest answers, short enough that you'll want to watch all of it.
How far in the future should I send it?
One year is a good first horizon: long enough to be surprising, short enough that you'll still have the file. Three to five years works well around big transitions; ten or more needs several copies and a storage plan.
Where should I store a video message to my future self?
In at least two places, in an ordinary MP4 file, named with the date it was recorded and the date to open it, with a calendar reminder saying where it is. Keep it out of a syncing camera roll if it's personal. Storing a private video diary.
Sources
- Zhang, T., Kim, T., Brooks, A. W., Gino, F., & Norton, M. I. (2014). A "present" for the future: The unexpected value of rediscovery. Psychological Science, 25(10), 1851–1860.
- Quoidbach, J., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2013). The end of history illusion. Science, 339(6115), 96–98.
- Chishima, Y., & Wilson, A. E. (2021). Conversation with a future self: A letter-exchange exercise enhances student self-continuity, career planning, and academic thinking. Self and Identity, 20(5), 640–671. Discussed in BrainFacts.
- van Gelder, J.-L., Hershfield, H. E., & Nordgren, L. F. (2013). Vividness of the future self predicts delinquency. Psychological Science, 24(6), 974–980.
- Hershfield, H. E., et al. (2011). Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of the future self. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(SPL), S23–S37.
- Library of Congress. MPEG-4, Advanced Video Coding (Part 10) (H.264). Sustainability of Digital Formats.
- FutureMe.