7 reasons I tell the women I coach to get real mail again

I ask every new client the same question. Tell me one thing you did last March. Not a birthday or a trip, just an ordinary afternoon.

Almost nobody can answer. Her phone holds thousands of photos from that month and she cannot recall a single day of it. The months did not stop mattering. Nothing was marking them.

That is the job of this envelope. It goes out by the 15th of every month, and the month has a marker again.

Think about what comes to your door now. Statements, catalogs, a flyer for gutter cleaning. None of it was made for you.

This is a sage green envelope addressed to you, filled and sealed by hand. I tell clients to leave it on the counter for an hour before they open it. Anticipation is part of the gift, and there is so little of it left.

Every envelope starts with a short letter about the month you are in. September's was about why that month always makes us want to begin again, even decades after the last first day of school.

It ended on a line I have repeated to clients ever since: “There is no finished version of you waiting at the end of all this.” Then it swapped the usual question, what do I need to accomplish, for a better one. What am I becoming?

My whole method fits in a sentence: write one true line a day. The hard part is never the writing. It is the blank page asking what to say.

Each envelope carries a card of journal prompts. September asked, “What is one thing I’m currently letting go of?” That is exactly the kind of question I would give a client on a Monday morning. The prompts work in any journal you already own.

Writing about your life works better when you are living some of it. September's envelope included a short bucket list for exactly that.

Take a walk somewhere you have never walked before. Buy yourself flowers. Call someone you have not talked to in a while. None of it costs much, and every item hands you something worth writing down that night.

Every print is designed by Still Archive's in-house artist, and no two months are alike. September's was green hills under a sky of blue stars, with a black cat asleep on a red rug.

A sheet of stickers comes from the same hand. That month it was a fig, a strawberry and a little tree, made for the pages of a journal. The print is made for a frame, or at least a spot on the fridge where you will see it every morning.

It costs less than a lunch out. $19 a month with free U.S. shipping, and the Founding Member rate is locked in for life.

It is a monthly subscription. You're charged today for your first envelope, then on the same day each month after that. Place your order before the 1st of the month to receive that month's edition. Orders placed on or after the 1st start with the next month's edition. Skip, pause, or cancel anytime before your next billing date from your account.