181–190 of 510 posts
Once in a while, look at the list. If you see someone's name and think, "I wonder how they're doing?", contact them.
It's a lot more organic than scheduling the contacts, and it'll feel more organic to the recipients, too.
"simple system" -> requires engineering skills and a full article to explain it. Keeping social interactions this way is kind of sad and gray, just keep less people around but with some quality time invested for them.
Reading this, I also came up with a simple system. It call it an "address book". Write people's names in it, along with their contact info. Feel free to use paper or digital. Once in a while, look at the list. If you see someone's name and think, "I wonder how they're doing?", contact them . It's a lot more organic than scheduling the contacts, and it'll feel more organic to the recipients, too.
My main issue with keeping in touch with people is that texting someone you only vaguely know is kinda weird. You don't see the other person, you don't hear them, you can't know what's in their mind. Those exchanges often just hang in a weird void after a few texts and it's unsure when/how to continue from there. On the other hand, calling someone you don't know well (even someone you do know!) feels even weirder and…
Reading this, I also came up with a simple system. It call it an "address book". Write people's names in it, along with their contact info. Feel free to use paper or digital. Once in a while, look at the list. If you see someone's name and think, "I wonder how they're doing?", contact them . It's a lot more organic than scheduling the contacts, and it'll feel more organic to the recipients, too.
Sir, is a bitter comment like this necessary?
I am far from social, but it's pretty obvious to me that scheduling contacts with people is not normal and is likely to feel stilted, and not providing the desired result in the end.
Then, I read the comments and saw that every person who came to the same conclusion is downvoted to hell. So I'm just adding this comment in solidarity with people who possess some sort of emotional intuition / "yikes radar". You're not alone.
Some comments here claim that he is treating people not as friends. IMO these comments are not charitable a interpretation. While it is a plausible interpretation, I have strongly learned from HN to be charitable and optimistic when reading someone else's point of view. I know with topics like this that perspectives vary more wildly among people, so let me show you why I can be more optimistic in my interpretation. I…
I get thinking about a system like this. I have given some thought about building something similar, but always ended up abandoning it for the exact same reasons this post strikes me as extremely weird: - It feels weird classifying people in boxes of desired contact frequency. How do you decide that? Does the author think "I honestly don't care enough about this person to contact them more than once a year" ? Then wh…
Seems both fair and reasonable, but IME it's wrong.
It's wrong in a way that is stable as well, and that is why it takes effort to fight: people easily get anxious about rejection, and they easily get it in their heads that the other person doesn't want to hear from them. Anything from "we had a bad interaction" to "they didn't reply last time" seems to be an excuse to cut contact.
According to (probably dubious) tests, I'm not especially extroverted or introverted. But I make conscious effort to keep contacts alive, because I just like the human contact and keeping updated on people's stories.
It's also the case that people like to help, and will do so readily if you reach out to them, which is another weird hold-up in people's minds (can I ask this person that I kinda know about this thing? 90% of the time, yes). Just this week I reached out to people who were my primary school teachers for some advice, I kid you not. Now do I talk much to these ladies that I knew 30 years ago? No. Now and again I'll send out a short piece about how my family is doing, and that's it. But even if they read it and don't reply, chances are they appreciate it. Kinda like TCP, you can have an open connection even though nothing is sent over it.
Another case is that friend who sucks at staying in touch. I have a number of friends who are super warm and chummy when I'm near them, but they never take it upon themselves to initiate anything. Think about when you were a kid, how many people did you hang out with, vs how many people bothered to organize parties? It's like 50 and 4. So a lot of people will just wait for an invite, and they'll get enough that they don't need to do anything.
As for the logistics, I don't have a custom program to do it for me, it's just a Trello, plus FB and LinkedIn that I scan from time to time. FB tells me birthdays, so that is a good time to write a DM. LinkedIn tells me when they changed jobs, which is also a good time to update. And then Trello because not everyone is active on the other two. I'll also do a quick scan if I'm travelling, in case someone I know is at the destination, and I'll send out some emails at Christmas/NY.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment comes across as arrogant. It's a privilege to have the spare time and energy to act on all of your intentions. You could apply the same argument to keeping to-do lists, storing people's phone numbers in your phone book, using facebook or having a birthday calendar etc. Try having a child and see how close your ability to execute is with your principles!
Who is arrogant there? It's not an issue not to keep in touch every 3 weeks with someone. When you have a child, you just meet new people, parents of your child's friends for example. Relationships don't disappear, they pause, when you get back to them, it's like riding a bike, and if you don't get back to them, it's ok. It's what you do with your life which dictates who you meet, and who you have relationships with.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get thinking about a system like this. I have given some thought about building something similar, but always ended up abandoning it for the exact same reasons this post strikes me as extremely weird: - It feels weird classifying people in boxes of desired contact frequency. How do you decide that? Does the author think "I honestly don't care enough about this person to contact them more than once a year" ? Then wh…
Think of it as the lowest common denominator. It isn't "this person is not important, so I will contact them only once a year", it is "this person is important enough for me to contact them AT LEAST once per year". Flexibility isn't lost, but you have baseline level of commitment to every relationship. If you don't want to contact that person anymore - it's a conscious choice, not "just lost touch", but if you want t…
Well, the issue is that baseline level of commitment is extremely low, to the point where I don't think it's an actual relationship if you only talk once a year. Once a year and zero are practically the same.
> You, obviously, SHOULD try to read blog/twitter/whatever BEFORE contacting that person, try to find something interesting there and talk about it. Or check notes about person's interests and bring up something you recently saw/heard, that is related to their interests. And some people don't use social media, and asking about their wellbeing is completely normal.
I know what the author is saying. That's why I say it would get weird. First time that you say "I just read your update from a month ago" or "two weeks ago I read something about DnD and now I remembered you like DnD" you can make it seem organic. Second, maybe still. Third one, fourth one? At some point the other person is going to notice that the triggers are never connected to the actual contacts. That's what I mean. If you have all these sources of information for this person and things that remind you of their interests, you probably don't need a reminder system on top of that (scheduling is a different issue, but I don't think a daily email is the best tool to solve schedule issues).