How to think about the four immeasurable minds?
Maybe you find it helpful, but I'm not sure it's appropriate:


Because you don't want to be, especially, thinking about yourself
Because you might tend to have more than enough self-love anyway, without trying to develop more


Consider compassion, for example. Would you burn your hand? No, because it would hurt. Would you burn someone else's hand? No, because it would hurt. It's the same hurt and so the same compassion, the same reason.



Also I read that part of the point of the Brahmaviharas is in a social situation:


  They provide, in fact, the answer to all situations arising from social contact. They are the great removers of tension, the great peace-makers in social conflict, and the great healers of wounds suffered in the struggle of existence.


If they're for "situations arising from social contact" maybe they're not applicable when you're alone; and if they are applicable to you, then apply them in the same way that you'd apply them to anyone else.



The metta-bhavana practice (i.e. thinking of someone dear to you, then of someone who is less dear) is I think trying to develop metta (the same metta) towards all: so I see no benefit, see it as counter-productive, to create/view/distinguish two categories of metta, one for yourself and another for others.



I don't want to say that yours is a bad suggestion, I only don't see how to apply it. Maybe your suggestion is especially appropriate when you are alone and not with other people, to "help us to remember to have self-compassion" as you said. But maybe it's more beneficial to not hold a view-of-self.