It started with a promise.
These days, most of us don't need anything. Our homes are full, our drawers are full, and another candle or gadget or jumper goes straight to the back of a cupboard. Maybe that's why, for years, I stopped giving things and started giving experiences instead: a dinner booked, a concert, a weekend away. Not to be clever — a night together is simply the only gift that doesn't end up on a shelf.
Because here is what I've come to believe: the world doesn't need more stuff. What we are really starving for is time — unspent, undivided time with the people we love. A thing can be bought in a minute. Time together has to be given.
So when my boyfriend's birthday came around, I knew exactly what I wanted to give him, and exactly why I couldn't. He is the kind of person who already has everything he needs — and the one thing he wanted most was a faraway trip, a proper one, on another continent. That was the one thing I couldn't afford to give as a present.
So I gave him a promise instead. Forty things we could do before his 50th. Not a voucher, not a card — a book. Pages of experiences to look forward to together: places we would see, food we would try, slow mornings we would deliberately waste. And so the plans wouldn't stay plans, the first one was booked as part of the gift.
I couldn't afford the trip he dreamed of. So I promised him forty.
A list like that turns out to be the most generous gift I have ever given. It is not really about the doing — it is about having something to plan for, talk about and count down to, for years. Every "when shall we do this?" is another evening at the table, another road trip promised, another reason to stay close. The book keeps giving long after the birthday candles are gone, because what it really holds is time: future time, already claimed, together.
I have a digital design background, so when I couldn't find the book I wanted to give, I designed it myself: a hardcover with a double-page spread for every experience, quietly beautiful, made to be kept.
And because no two people are alike, every book starts with a short questionnaire about the person you are giving it to — who they are, what they love, where they dream of going. So the pages are theirs alone, not something off a template. That is what makes each book a one-of-one.
That first book became Tomorrow Project. Every book we make starts the same way it did for me: someone who knows someone well, and a list of things they promise to do together. Because in the end, the best thing you can give someone is not a thing at all — it is time they can see, hold and count down to.