Graduation time capsule ideas

When should a graduation capsule open?

Five years is the sweet spot for a class. People have moved, started jobs and changed their minds, but they still recognize each other. One year suits a friend group that wants a quick reunion. Ten years makes a good story and needs a firmer plan for backups, because phones and email addresses will have changed twice.

Pick a date that suits a gathering, not a random day. A reunion in the first week of summer, or the weekend after New Year, gets more people to show up.

What should graduates put in?

• Five predictions: where I will live, my job, who I will still talk to, a skill I will have, a thing I will regret.
• A letter that starts "Dear me on the day of our reunion,".
• A photo of the friends you are with right now.
• A voice note of the group saying something silly together.
• Your plan for the first month after leaving.
• One thing you will miss and one thing you will not.

Which questions work for a whole class?

Class questions should be the same for everyone and safe to read out loud. Sealday's About each other pack suits a class: who moves cities first, who picks up a hobby and sticks with it, the next trip together, who runs a marathon or big race first, the group chat's word of the year.

Keep the list to five. Anyone can finish five questions in under two minutes, which matters when thirty people are waiting for one phone. See how Tables work for the pass-the-phone flow and its limits.

What should I do as a solo graduate?

Write to yourself. Describe the building, the commute, the person you sat with, what you are scared of. Add a "then" photo, ideally of a place you will leave. When you open the capsule, Sealday asks for a matching "now" photo and shows both with their dates.

This is also a good moment to start a yearly habit with a New Year or birthday capsule. The guide to writing to your future self has prompts for a new chapter.

How do I run it, step by step?

1. Choose an owner for the plan, ideally someone organized and sociable.
2. Pick the reunion date and write it on every invitation, calendar and group chat.
3. Create the Tables and choose the prompt pack.
4. Run a seal-up session during the last week of school, with a time limit of two minutes per person.
5. Close sealing, then export a vault file and give a copy to a second person.
6. On reunion night, run the reveal on a TV with AirPlay and mark the answers together.

What can go wrong?

Details of backups and restores are on the backup page.

• The owner moves away and the phone goes with them. Export a vault file and share it.
• Nobody remembers the date. Add it to the group chat topic and a shared calendar.
• Entries leak. Keep entries sealed in the app rather than in a shared document.
• Sensitive answers. Avoid questions about grades, health, money and relationships.
• A phone upgrade without a backup. Remind everyone about iCloud Backup.

What should a reunion look like?

Keep it short and let the capsule be the main event. Book a room or a garden, ask everyone to bring one photo from today, and run the reveal in the middle of the evening. Read each question aloud, flip the answers one by one and let people argue about the marks. Kind of is the most popular grade at a reunion, because few predictions were completely wrong and almost none were completely right.

End with the next capsule. Seal a new set of answers for a reunion five years later, and the first one will not be the last.

Is a paper capsule still better?

Paper is lovely at a ceremony and poor at a reunion five years later, when someone has to remember where the box was buried. A digital capsule is easier to find and can be locked for real. You can do both: a box with the printed class photo, and a digital capsule with the predictions.