There’s really only one strict thank-you-note rule: Write and send the card promptly, within a week or two. I am here to tell you that this advice is outdated. Allow me to explain.

Traditional thank you notes serve a purpose: They are a confirmation of gift receipt as well as a confirmation that you were raised right. I don’t have a problem with these notes! They are lovely and always appreciated. But they are often less than thrilling: How much can you say about a gift you received? It’s very nice; the gift giver was generous and thoughtful. I am okay, for the record, with these messages being conveyed via text or phone call or email instead of by handwritten note.

Heartfelt gratitude notes, on the other hand, are generally about something a person did or said. Those are mostly the kinds of notes I wrote in my Thank You Year, and mostly the notes I talk about in my book, on Instagram, and on my blog. They are more fun to write and to read, and unlike the traditional thank you note, there is no statute of limitations. You can thank somebody for something they said a decade ago. The note is unexpected and therefore cannot be late.

I’ve recently found a third category of gratitude note that combines the above two: belated, heartfelt thank you notes about a gift sent months or years later, explaining how the gift has been used. I’ve seen two recent examples:

1. My friend Grace took a picture of a broken Kate Spade cereal bowl, printed out the picture on cardstock, and wrote on the back: “Well, we’ve come to the end of an era. This was the last of the 10 cereal bowls you got from our registry for our wedding. You know my love of cereal runs deep and losing these bowls is nothing short of devastating. No bowl I’ve bought since compares. I love you and will still always think of you as I eat cereal, even without the bowls.”

2. This is a video instead of a note, but the intention is the same. My son Henry sent my mom a video re: the stuffed animal she sent him for Valentine’s Day, who has joined the elite crowd allowed into his bed at night. Here’s what he said: “Last night I couldn’t sleep. So can I tell you what I did? Your stuffy not just helped me fall asleep, it made me pass out. Imagine this is the pillow. I literally just went, plop. Then I woke up again, and it helped me fall asleep again. So I really feel grateful to you for giving me that.”

What Grace and Henry did is turned the task of writing thank you notes from a “should” to a “good,” a term Robyn Downs used in our podcast interview. (One of my faves, btw, and well worth the 43 minutes!)

Another way to rethink a gratitude note? Write it right on the jacket of a book! My old neighbor who moved upstate, Leslie, texted me this picture, above, and aside from being flattered that she is gifting my book to friends, I was also impressed with the ingenuity. I’ve always loved when people inscribe books—writing a gratitude note on a book jacket is like a supercharged inscription that turns a book into a treasured memento. 

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If you’ll be in Southern California this Sunday 8/29, I’d love to see you at my book party at Pages bookstore in Manhattan Beach!

I was on the Chakra Girl Radio podcast!

Thank YOU for reading to the bottom! Impressed!