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A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

jakobgreenfeld.com

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Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#421

Post by mebreuer »

This is awesome to see - I built myself an incredibly similar version of it using Airtable as well. I send myself 3 names per week, and found that's the right number for me to send outreach to.

To me, it doesn't feel forced at all - it's up to me whether I want to contact the suggestions, or ignore. Often times I get a suggestion for someone who I've spoken to recently, and I can happily ignore the reminder!

The biggest issue I have with it is keeping the contact list up to date. I would love if someone built software that did exactly this, but also let me sync my Linkedin / Instagram / Gmail accounts and suggested new people to add to my list, based on who I've newly connected with recently. Or if there's a way to do it in Airtable, even better.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#422

Post by pdimitar »

Oh yeah, great. More beeping from my calendar. Sure. :(

I know networking is important but many people don't evoke the "I want to keep in touch with this person!" response instinctively and naturally in me.

And I am not at all introverted, quite sociable in fact -- but not the proverbial extrovert that feeds on communication either; I am one of these people that needs time to recharge the social battery, however it does recharge rather quickly (I know I can have social events with people outside two times a week; sometimes three).

I mean, squint hard enough and almost every problem can be reduced to "let's use machines to poke us in the butt because we forgot to do this or that". No thanks. Good cause and I agree we need to keep in touch but I'll keep searching for other, less stressful and schedule-oriented, methods.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#423

Post by vorpalhex »

thelettere wrote: post #337
vorpalhex wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be very skeptical of healthline and treat them like an actively malicious source. They have supported batshit insane nonsense in the past. In this case they did not even link to the study! They literally only have a link to the magazine's description. Several searches haven't yielded the study they are referencing either, only more content farms running the same story.

I agree about healthline but this is an established finding in psychology. Not sure how you're searching, but this is a review that mentions it: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096372141142945...

They don't mention NSAIDs in the abstract, I will see if I can pull the full article.

I would hope to see better evidence if this is genuinely established. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but "established finding" is a high bar.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#424

Post by AlwaysRock »

kirso wrote: post #330
brnt wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is in me or how it got there, but I seem to be thoroughly convinced that I'll only be bothering people. When I rationally think about it, even emotionally, I disagree, yet I cannot shake the instinctual feeling.

Not sure about the studies that are listed below. Honestly I just kind of try to understand the patterns / feelings and try to see whether its really intrinsic or something else. But here is a good tip, people who want to stay in touch, will be in touch. People who want to stay in touch and are busy will respond, are happy that you reached out and will suggest a catch-up Rest is well, not worth your effort. You can e…

> But here is a good tip, people who want to stay in touch, will be in touch.

This flies in the face of the whole point of OP's post. It's hard to stay in touch. Even when you want to. I have at least 2-3 friends who were very good friends at one point and who I'd like to be good friends with again but we just don't keep in regular contact. When we do talk its great but for some reason or another we don't talk often.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#425

Post by vorpalhex »

kixiQu wrote: post #351
vorpalhex wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes shallow interactions are fine. Like bread in your diet, there's nothing wrong with it so long as it isn't the only interaction. It's an opportunity for engagement. Sometimes nobody wants to take the opportunity but it's valuable to have. If you want it to be more engaging, make it so. Ask questions in return, share good responses. "How are you?" can be answered in one word or several paragraphs.

Yeah, but it sucks when someone reaches out, you go for the paragraphs, and then you get a sentence or two back. You can try and make it engaging, but that doesn't mean both parties are looking to be engaged.

Agreed, it takes two to converse. I usually will give people a few shots at engagement before I write them off, but eventually you just need to be a realist about it.

Please don't let those experiences discourage you from continuing to reach out though.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#426

Post by dang »

brthsim wrote: post #151

[flagged]

Could you please read and follow the site guidelines when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Note these:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#427

Post by AlwaysRock »

hotpotamus wrote: post #374
chinchilla2020 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. The author is trying to automate human connection - but it probably doesn't come off genuine.

Have you ever played Stardew Valley? One game mechanic involves managing relationships with members of the town. You need to discover peoples' likes and dislikes, keep up contact, and remember their birthdays and probably a few other rules I'm forgetting. There's essentially a spreadsheet that you manage. It's the strangest thing to me - it feels like the way an autistic person might view relationships, but also like…

It's funny because this is how real relationships work though. Well not exactly. In stardew you have to give gifts to really become better friends with someone but in real life its much easier to become better friends with someone when you know their likes and dislikes.

Honestly most of the bosses I've had that I actually liked are because I knew something they care about and we could talk about that. The ones I didnt like that much were just like blobs of work stress who never brought anything else up except on rare rare occasion so it was difficult to relate to them.

Friends are the same way. I have a buddy where we mostly talk about movies. We do that enough that we end up talking about shit other than movies too.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#429

Post by abnercoimbre »

bnralt wrote: post #394
kirso wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Agree with this. I think we come to terms at a certain point that its impossible to stay in touch with everyone. I actually kept a table with people to stay in touch with them every: - month - quarter - 6 months - a year (if its less then you remember anyways) I quickly killed that approach, because people who genuinely understand overwhelm also are always happy to catch-up once in a while and we hold no har…

I agree, but I also think it's also an issue (particularly with the popularity of social media) that people are often trying to keep in contact with many more people but also interacting a lot more than in the past. For instance, I know people who were part of the greatest generation that would have decades long pen-pal type relationships with people they hadn't seen in person in years. It was pretty common for them…

Are you saying even e-mail completely died down in your life? I still get a lot of value from e-mail exchanges with old friends -- I agree it's not super common though.

Re: A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people

#430

Post by AlwaysRock »

gjulianm wrote: post #406
snowwrestler wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a huge difference between once a year and zero. Think of the strong traditions behind birthday or annual holiday greetings, for instance. Look at it this way. Let’s say you reach out to 100 people once a year. Well there are 7.7 billion people on Earth. You’re putting those 100 people into your 99.999999 percentile for that year!

> Think of the strong traditions behind birthday or annual holiday greetings, for instance. And I don’t know of any meaningful relationship that is maintained just by that bare minimum.

I think maintained is exactly what that can do.

I'm friends with someone in college. We graduate and move to separate cities. We go from regular contact to every few months. By 2 or 3 years from graduation its just a text on birthdays. That last for a year or two. We both get married and then reconnect because of X. We become closer friends again.

That same situation is less likely to happen without the yearly contact. At the very least the friendship is maintained, even if the maintaining can only last a few years before deteriorating, and it gives the relationship a higher chance to pick back up at a later date.

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