On a winter morning in China’s south, soldiers of a battalion in the 75th Group Army gathered not for drills but to open envelopes they had sealed a year earlier. The “Time Post Office” exercise asks servicemen and women to write a letter to their future selves outlining personal and collective goals; after twelve months those letters are opened, progress is reviewed and new targets set.
What began as a morale exercise has produced measurable results. The battalion reports a completion rate above 90 percent for the goals set in the first round; examples include a senior sergeant who mastered unmanned aerial vehicle operations and now leads an “innovation studio,” a private-first-class who transformed from the unit’s weakest runner into a top-ten performer in five-kilometre tests, and a reconnaissance squad that met all of its stated objectives and won recognitions in collective assessments.
Organisers treat the letters as more than sentimental keepsakes. The unit runs periodic “wish reviews” to track progress, pairs struggling soldiers with cadre mentors for tailored coaching, and publicly rewards notable improvements. The exercise culminates in writing fresh commitments, often refined after a year of practical experience and command guidance.
Commanders say the project is part of a broader goal-management approach to shape behaviour at the individual and small-unit level. By converting abstract ideals into written commitments, and coupling those commitments with mentoring, dynamic monitoring and recognition, the unit seeks to institutionalise habit change and raise overall combat readiness.
The initiative also serves a publicity function. Publishing human-scale stories of skill acquisition, physical turnaround and leadership achievement helps portray the People’s Liberation Army as methodical, meritocratic and modernising. It dovetails with other PLA efforts to professionalise forces, cultivate technical skills—unmanned systems are a recurring emphasis—and tighten the link between individual development and unit capability.
Yet the practice has limits. The favourable completion rate is self-reported, and the examples highlighted are successes rather than a statistically representative sample. Whether this form of goal management meaningfully alters combat effectiveness or is scalable across the PLA’s vast force structure depends on sustained follow-through, honest assessment and the resources commanders commit to training and mentoring.
For now the “Time Post Office” functions as a low-cost behavioural nudge that yields morale dividends and produces a visible paper trail of personal development. As the battalion moves to refine the programme, commanders say they will better align personal growth plans with unit priorities—an explicit effort to turn private ambitions into operational advantage.