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

jakobgreenfeld.com

441–450 of 510 posts

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

#441

With my brother, we recently created a small app dedicated to this task: https://app.kipinto.ch It's available on the web, on Android and on iOS, under the name Kipinto This app is not specifically targeted to follow your friends, which happens quite naturally, but more to keep in touch with those persons that you consider important but with whom you have no "natural" occasion to interact: an old colleague or client…

I'd like to test it. Can you make it available to download in the UK? Currently seems to be unavailable. Thanks!

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

#443
I love this idea! I can't tell you how many friendships I've lost in the past (or ones that could've taken off but prematurely died) from getting stuck in the "I think they don't want to talk to me"/"They think I don't want to talk to them" cycle. Then you end up with neither person initiating contact, and the whole thing just kind of ends. Many if not most people these days don't want to initiate, including me, so if you wait on them to reach out to you, they simply never will, even if they want to talk to you, or would enjoy a conversation.

I've been making steps toward being the person who initiates all contact, and so far it seems to work better than my previous strategies of "never initiating contact", and "initiating 50% of contacts and assuming they're not interested if they don't initiate". The only problem is I'm really not a natural at reaching out, so if left to my own devices I wouldn't do it often enough to maintain the relationship. I like OP's idea of externalizing it with a tool, that makes it a lot easier to maintain the kind of consistency needed to grow a relationship.

To all those saying this is forced or inhuman or robotic or whatever... Listen it would be great to have some kind of easy natural friendship where both people would do half the work, think of each other regularly and reach out in an easy non forced manner, but in my life experience that kind of relationship seems to be very hard to find, if not impossible.

In the real world it seems to me like the choices are be lonely and alone, or to do all the work (especially in initiating). In the past I chose to be lonely and alone, maybe holding out for that kind of unicorn, ideal friendship that people in this thread are talking about. I don't think it was a good choice. I switched, I'm doing the other approach and now I have people I can talk to. I do feel kind of resentful for having to put in way more effort initiating than the other person in these relationships, but it beats being alone and lonely, so I'd still say it's a net positive overall.

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

#444

I find this pretty sad to be honest. How would you feel if you were on a B or C list and got some kind of shallow, automated message like this? For me it would probably do the opposite by showing me that you don’t actually value me or our friendship, just the outcome. Like an SEO guru type or something, full of shallow words. Friendships, like any relationship, require work. And, given we are human, nuance and authen…

I was just reading a blog complaining about commenters not reading the article, and the next comment I read on a completely different article did not RTFQ. > got some kind of shallow, automated message like this? Jakob describes how after he is reminded of the person in the morning, he researches what has happened to them since he last spoke and finds some genuine content/connection to send to that person.

Actually I did RTFA (not sure what your Q means) as indicated by my direct reference of groups A-D, but stopped once I saw the JQL style query as that really sealed the deal for me.

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

#445

The biggest reason I don't maintain contact with people from my past is I was a much worse person in my past and I'm either embarrassed about my behavior or concerned that my shittiness is what led to our relationship in the first place. In any case, I find it's easier (and emotionally satisfying) to stay in touch with a couple people that I can have natural, unforced conversations with. Scheduling interactions on a…

> The biggest reason I don't maintain contact with people from my past is I was a much worse person in my past and I'm either embarrassed about my behavior or concerned that my shittiness is what led to our relationship in the first place. I feel the same. In fact, I intentionally avoid interacting with people from my past since they may have bad memories involving me that I'd be resurfacing by contacting them. I've…

I know I'm not particularly unique in having that sort of past, but it's comforting to hear someone else share these thoughts. Thank you.

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

#447
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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 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.

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

#448

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…

+1 to this. I use Dex https://getdex.com/ and I see a few other apps in the feed too. There is clearly some market demand.

Life gets busy and it helps to have something more than just a stock contacts app.

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

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it because Tylenol isn't an NSAID?
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