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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

#431

Post by justinlloyd »

I have a system I use to communicate with about 14,000 connections on LinkedIn. It takes me about six months to work my way through the list, at which point, I start again. I spend about 15 to 20 minutes per day on the outreach. 30 minutes at the outside.

I tend to build little side projects, about once every four months or so, side projects that I can show off to people that are interesting in some way, then use that as my launching point for reaching out. "Hey, I built this interesting thing, it uses the following technologies. This isn't a pitch, I'm not trying to sell you a service, I just thought you might be interested. What are you up to these days? Building anything interesting?"

Leads to an awful lot of potential work, job interviews, availability checks, and coffee meetings. A lot of people ping back, many never respond. This technique has gotten me jobs and work for the past 15+ years, ever since LinkedIn was launched.

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

#432

Post by p_l »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #380
p_l wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At no point does he talk about making everyone into a deep friend. I guess english language is just incapable of explaining it due to not enough words to express the spectrum? Do note that he has different "frequency" categories (which don't have to map to "type of friendship" same way even in that one database!). Some are just people he is interested in meeting, maybe keeping in light contact over time. Some more of…

Oh actually I really agree with you and the OP. I was responding more to the parent post. I think it's ok to just partition our lives into friends we value -- and largely ignore others. We'd be insane otherwise. So long as we remember to keep a general humanistic value for the man (or woman or trans or define-it-yourself) on the street... As I get older I find it hard to even KEEP UP with normal friends flung far awa…

Considering my own issues, this system makes me envious, specifically because of how hard it is to ensure to call and talk or message etc.

That said, the system I guess shows dual-use case of CRM technology ;)

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

#433

Post by christiangenco »

throw10920 wrote: post #411
christiangenco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Derek! My implementation of your system is just a bunch of markdown files. The title of the file is a friend's name, the frontmatter at the top keeps info about them that doesn't change too often (ex: birthday, address, kids names), and each time I chat with them I add a section with an H1 title that's the date we chatted (ex: "# 2022-02-14\n"). My notes about the chat go under that heading. Based off of that stru…

Sorry to butt in, but this is a fallacy that I see expressed a lot (and shares a lot of similarities to the "computers can execute improperly-typed programs" fallacy), and that has caused a non-trivial amount of harm. >> If digital, use only plain text. It’s a standard format not owned by any company. This is fine for anything where you don't care about the computer processing your data (e.g. a journal where you don'…

That's fair. I suppose instead of "plain text" what I mean here is "minimally formatted plain text files that live on my hard drive."

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

#434

Post by andreyk »

There is actually at least one app for this - https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/a-new-app-called-garden-he...

Pretty sure there are a couple of other ones. I don't get the backlash to this on here, life gets busy and it's nice to have some reminders set to not forget to make time to reach out to people.

Personally I've gotten a lot more into getting in touch with people I have not caught up with in weeks / months / year over the course of COVID, and think it's a super valuable practice. Most people would not reach out themselves, but are totally down to catch up when messaged, and the worst case is you just don't end up meeting to chat.

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

#435

Post by manmal »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #316
bgroat wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every couple of days I scroll through my text history to the bottom and see if there's anyone there I'd like to talk to. I call it "The Poor Man's CRM"

I like this. I'd like it a ton if I had a single feed that would aggregate my texts, whatsapp, my various email addresses, telegram, signal, skype, zoom, facebook messenger ...

Beeper is essentially that. I’ve been using it for a few months and it’s surprisingly usable already.

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

#436

Post by manmal »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #357
atrus wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that just all it is though, a short two second message exchange. Everyone feels good for a bit, and that's that. What's the downside?

This feels like the friend/emotional equivalent of a "Help Vampire" -- someone at work who is constantly asking for help. A /very/ distant friend/contact who is pinging you once every 1/2/6/12 months (thank you crontab!) are doing nothing other than "keeping a contact list"... while sucking blood from your neck. If they are an extrovert and you are a introvert, the exchange is not zero sum!

There‘s always the possibility to ignore such people, no need to help or respond if you feel used.

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

#437

Post by jedberg »

I have a pretty simple system. It starts with social media -- a bunch of my friends are still there (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc).

For the ones that aren't there, I put a recurring item in my calendar to remind me of their birthday. Then I text them on their birthday.

The last step is going through my text message history, which is conveniently ordered by last contact. I skip down about two months, and then work my way down the list pinging people I still want to keep in touch with, either with something relevant (how's the new job, how's school) or generic (hey it's been a while how are you?).

That pretty much gets me everyone. I usually do a deeper review of my other contact methods (email, niche chat apps, etc) once a year around Christmas to make sure I didn't miss anyone and wish them a happy new year and try to get their number so they are in my text list instead.

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

#438

Post by a-dub »

bgroat wrote: post #216
kator wrote: post #205

Interesting way to approach it, my approach might be less technical, when someone comes to mind randomly, I just txt them with: Hey, you just popped into my mind, I hope all is well with you and yours! It's simple, lightweight, and you'd be shocked how often the other person pings back. My completely un-scientific view is that most people think of others once in a while. Perhaps we're too busy to reach out, or the gu…

Every couple of days I scroll through my text history to the bottom and see if there's anyone there I'd like to talk to. I call it "The Poor Man's CRM"

it's funny you say that. i've had thoughts about getting more organized like this, but then have come to realize "wait a minute, this means i'm industrializing my personal life with actual crm techniques. how do i feel about this? ick!"

but... maybe that's what you have to do when you get older, busier and more forgetful and maybe it's not icky at all, as you still maintain who goes on the lists.

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

#439

Post by svachalek »

andreyk wrote: post #434

There is actually at least one app for this - https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/a-new-app-called-garden-he... Pretty sure there are a couple of other ones. I don't get the backlash to this on here, life gets busy and it's nice to have some reminders set to not forget to make time to reach out to people. Personally I've gotten a lot more into getting in touch with people I have not caught up with in weeks / months / y…

That article’s old app link doesn’t work so fyi: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/garden-stay-in-touch/id1230466...

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

#440

Post by skydhash »

throw10920 wrote: post #411
christiangenco wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Derek! My implementation of your system is just a bunch of markdown files. The title of the file is a friend's name, the frontmatter at the top keeps info about them that doesn't change too often (ex: birthday, address, kids names), and each time I chat with them I add a section with an H1 title that's the date we chatted (ex: "# 2022-02-14\n"). My notes about the chat go under that heading. Based off of that stru…

Sorry to butt in, but this is a fallacy that I see expressed a lot (and shares a lot of similarities to the "computers can execute improperly-typed programs" fallacy), and that has caused a non-trivial amount of harm. >> If digital, use only plain text. It’s a standard format not owned by any company. This is fine for anything where you don't care about the computer processing your data (e.g. a journal where you don'…

I see your point. But as long as you're consistent with the format for each value, I don't foresee an issue. I consider everything that has a readable representation plain text, but your definition may be different. You can go with a standard format, like JSON or YAML, but I think you can probably define something that is easier to write and still processable. I agree with you, but someone can likely get by with adding markers and being consistent with them.
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