• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Time Capsule Writing Prompts

What to put in, what to tell your future self, and stories about a box opened long after.

Time Capsule Writing Prompts

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  1. Roadworks turn up a time capsule ten years early; write the meeting that decides whether to open it.Angle: give one person the key and another the rule book.
  2. Write down a dish your household makes, the way it is really made, to go in the capsule.Angle: include the shortcut, and whoever always steals a taste.
  3. Write a welcome for the capsule that would still make sense if English has shifted a little in fifty years.Angle: short words, no slang, one drawing described in words.

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All 60 prompts

What goes in the box 15

  • A class of thirty has one small box; write a fair rule for what gets into the capsule. Angle: then name the first thing your rule keeps out.
  • A song is stuck in your head this year; describe it for the capsule without quoting a word of it. Angle: where you hear it, who sings along, how the opener might find it.
  • Choose five objects for a time capsule and write one sentence on why each earned its place. Angle: nothing expensive; pick what would otherwise be thrown away.
  • Choose one photograph for the capsule and write the caption for its back. Angle: who, where, and what happened a minute after it was taken.
  • Describe one ordinary object of today so exactly that someone who has never seen it could draw it. Angle: its size, its weight, the sound it makes, what it is for.
  • Make the case for putting something broken into the time capsule. Angle: say how it broke and why you kept it.
  • Only what fits in a shoebox may go into the capsule; write the argument with yourself about what stays out. First line: The trophy was never going to fit.
  • Pick one thing for the capsule that shows what you do on a Saturday, and explain it to a stranger. Angle: say what it looks like after a year of use.
  • Put the weather in the capsule: describe today so exactly it could be told apart from tomorrow. Angle: the light at noon, the ground, what people have on.
  • Some things fit in no box: a smell, a noise, a view. Write one down so it can go into the capsule anyway. First line: This is what the kitchen sounds like at seven.
  • Write a guide to a device you use every day, for a capsule opener who has never seen one work. Angle: begin with how to switch it on and what goes wrong most often.
  • Write a page of today's prices for the capsule: a loaf, a bus ride, a movie ticket, a haircut. Angle: beside each, guess what it will cost on opening day.
  • Write down a dish your household makes, the way it is really made, to go in the capsule. Angle: include the shortcut, and whoever always steals a taste.
  • Write down everything you can see from your chair, for the person who opens the capsule. Angle: put a star by the ones you think will be gone by then.
  • Write the label for the lid of a time capsule: who sealed it, when, and when it may be opened. Angle: add one rule for whoever opens it.

A letter to future me 15

  • Describe your handwriting, your signature and your voice to the person you will be when the capsule opens. Angle: say what you would like to keep and what you are trying to change.
  • Empty your pockets or your bag and explain each thing in a letter to your older self. Angle: empty them for real before you write.
  • Explain a choice you have just made, so the reader of the capsule letter remembers the reasons and not only the result. Angle: write down what you almost chose.
  • Set down an ordinary Tuesday, hour by hour, for a future self who has forgotten what your days were like. Angle: keep the boring parts; they are what gets forgotten.
  • Tell your future self about something that worries you this week, so they can tell you how it went. Angle: describe it plainly and close with one question.
  • Tell your future self what you are best at this year, and how you got that good. Angle: name the practice that nobody saw.
  • Tell your future self what you think they look like, where they are reading this and who is in the next room. Angle: guess boldly; being wrong is the fun of it.
  • Write a capsule letter for future me to read on a bad day. Angle: no advice, just three things that were true when you sealed it.
  • Write a time capsule letter that begins with what you are certain of today and ends with what you are not. First line: I am sure of three things, and the first is the dog.
  • Write a time capsule letter to yourself that is made only of questions. Angle: ten of them, from the easy (still left-handed?) to the hard.
  • Write future me one apology and one thank-you, to be sealed in the capsule. Angle: one thing you keep putting off, one thing you started.
  • Write the P.S. of your time capsule letter first: the one line you would send if you could send only one. Angle: then write the letter that leads up to it.
  • Write to future me about a friend, in case you have lost touch: how you met and what you laugh at. First line: If you have not spoken to her lately, call.
  • Write to future me with five predictions to be checked on the day the capsule is opened. Angle: make two of them easy and one almost impossible.
  • Write to your future self about the oldest person in your life and one thing they said that you want kept. Angle: quote them exactly, then say where they were standing.

Opened in fifty years 15

  • The capsule is opened after fifty years and one thing inside has not aged a day; write why everyone stares. Angle: decide what it is before you start, and do not name it until the end.
  • The capsule is opened in fifty years by people who never met you; write the note that says who you all were. Angle: three sentences on the place, three on the people.
  • Describe a job of today for capsule openers who may no longer have it. Angle: what the worker does at nine, at noon and at five.
  • Explain to the people who open the capsule one thing about today that will need explaining. Angle: pick something so normal that nobody writes it down.
  • Fifty years on, someone tries to use an object from the capsule and cannot work out how; write the scene. First line: It has a button, so it must do something.
  • List the questions you would ask the people fifty years from now, knowing you will never hear the answers. Angle: ask about small things: breakfast, shoes, what children are told not to do.
  • The one who opens the capsule in fifty years is ten years old; write the letter for that child alone. Angle: tell them what being ten is like now.
  • Predict what the street outside will look like in fifty years, and what will be exactly the same. Angle: choose one tree, one building and one sound.
  • Tell the people who open the capsule what you hope they have fixed. Angle: one thing only, and why it was hard in your time.
  • Write a welcome for the capsule that would still make sense if English has shifted a little in fifty years. Angle: short words, no slang, one drawing described in words.
  • Write the museum label for one thing from your capsule, as a curator fifty years from now would. Angle: the object, its date, its use, and one thing the curator gets wrong.
  • Write the news report on the day a fifty-year-old time capsule is opened. First line: It took two people and a crowbar.
  • Write the speech the mayor gives when the capsule is opened, and what the person at the back mutters. Angle: the speech is grand; the mutter is truer.
  • Write to the people of fifty years from now: an apology for one thing your time got wrong and a boast about one it got right. Angle: keep each to a single paragraph.
  • You are invited to the opening, fifty years older; write the walk to the front. Angle: who is beside you, and what you hope is still in there.

A capsule someone else buried 15

  • A builder knocking through a wall finds a tin sealed long ago; write what lies on top when the lid comes off. First line: Somebody had folded the newspaper very carefully.
  • A buried box holds a letter addressed to whoever lives in your home now; write that letter. Angle: the writer asks you to check on one thing in the yard.
  • An old capsule holds a prediction about your town that came true; write the argument about whether it was luck. Angle: one voice for luck, one for foresight, one who just wants lunch.
  • An old time capsule is opened and holds nothing but a note; write the note. Angle: it should make the crowd laugh first and think second.
  • At a capsule opening someone sees their own childhood handwriting in a stranger's hands; write the moment. First line: That is my seven.
  • The finder of an old capsule wants to keep one thing from it; write the hour they think it over. Angle: name the thing and say why it is hard to hand back.
  • The map to a buried capsule is lost; tell the story of the one person sure of the spot. First line: Ten paces from the oak, except the oak was gone.
  • Roadworks turn up a time capsule ten years early; write the meeting that decides whether to open it. Angle: give one person the key and another the rule book.
  • Tell the story of a buried capsule from the box's side: the dark, the roots, the footsteps overhead. Angle: let it count time by something other than years.
  • Two time capsules are found in one spot, buried forty years apart; write what the second group said about the first. Angle: they opened the first one, then put it back.
  • Write a reply to a letter from an old time capsule, knowing its writer may never read it. First line: You asked whether the creek still floods. It does.
  • Write the diary of someone who sealed a capsule under the floor the night before moving away. Angle: they are not sure anyone will ever lift the board.
  • Write the letter found in an old time capsule, from a child who was sure how the future would go. Angle: let them be wrong about two things and right about one.
  • You dig up a jar in the garden with one object in it and no note; write three guesses at who left it. Angle: make the third guess the kindest.
  • Your grandparent's class buried a box, and you are there when it is dug up; write what they put in. Angle: the grandparent does not remember choosing it.

How it works

Most of these time capsule writing prompts are for a real capsule: pages to seal in the box and letters to whoever opens it. The rest are fiction, about capsules dug up early, found by strangers or opened in front of a crowd.

Read the full guide

A time capsule writing prompt for the letter inside

Fifteen prompts are letters to your future self, and they go past a list of favorites: write five predictions to be checked on opening day, describe your handwriting and your voice, or write the P.S. first and then the letter that leads up to it.

Writing for the people who open it

A capsule read in fifty years needs explaining. Write the note that says who you all were, a page of today's prices with your guess beside each, or a guide to a device the opener has never seen work. Short words travel best.

  • Put the date, the place and your age at the top. The opener will want all three.
  • Describe one small thing exactly. A price or a smell dates a page better than a headline.

Questions and answers

What do you write in a time capsule letter?

What will have changed by the time it is read: what you are sure of today, a worry and how you think it ends, a friend and how you met. Close with one question for the reader.

What are good time capsule writing prompts for the start of a school year?

The ones a year can answer. Write five predictions to check on opening day, empty your bag and explain each thing, or say what you are best at now and how you got that good.

What can go in a time capsule besides a letter?

From this list, things on paper that date quickly: the label for the lid, a caption for the back of one photograph, the weather today, a dish your household makes written the way it is really made.

Are there story prompts about finding a time capsule?

Fifteen. A builder finds a sealed tin in a wall, roadworks turn up a capsule ten years early, and a buried box holds a letter addressed to whoever lives in your home now.

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