[HN Gopher] A simple system I'm using to stay in touch with hund...
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A simple system I'm using to stay in touch with hundreds of people
Author : jakobgreenfeld
Score : 715 points
Date : 2022-02-14 08:04 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jakobgreenfeld.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jakobgreenfeld.com)
| degosuke wrote:
| What I tried some time ago, was putting people as projects in my
| trello board (I had it set up as a GTD board with a separate
| column for Projects). And each time I did a review I wrote a
| comment like: "Didn't do anything recently" or "Seen last
| weekend, X and Y was lot of fun". And when I felt it was time to
| reach out I did - if not it waited for the next review.
| mda wrote:
| I find it very odd that someone categorizes people / friends into
| buckets and have a schedule to communicate with them. If o knew
| someone is writing me because of a schedule it would put me off
| immediately.
| syndacks wrote:
| 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 authenticity too. I text people when I
| think about them. Occasionally I'll scroll through my text
| message history to see if someone I care about hasn't heard from
| me or viceversa in a while. Sometimes it leads to a text-convo, a
| phone convo, or IRL plans.
|
| If you struggle with friendships and see an article like this as
| a way to "hack" the system, I caution you to think twice. Less is
| more. Cultivate your tender friend garden with intention, not
| automation.
| DataGata wrote:
| 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.
| syndacks wrote:
| 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.
| horstmeyer wrote:
| Someone made a tool for this purpose:
| https://github.com/monicahq/monica
|
| "You may call it cheating but considering my poor memory, I call
| it caring."
| eddieroger wrote:
| I tried Monica for the reason in the quote - I don't try to be
| a bad friend, but I'm forgetful, and I was hoping it would make
| my life a little easier by being a digital memory in the
| absence of a good meat-based one. I found the learning curve
| and the way they viewed capturing data to be just a little too
| opposed to how I wanted to use it, unfortunately. Particularly,
| I was invested in the idea of moving all of my contacts in to
| it and letting it be the source of truth on my phone, but the
| friction to import my contacts was high, and once I did, the
| way to log interactions with people, specifically colleagues
| from work, was very challenging.
|
| I'd love to hear of others who are successfully using it,
| because I'm always game to try twice.
| leathersoft wrote:
| Interesting. I've got to say, a bit cold, but I agree that is
| definitely better than no reach outs at all.
| [deleted]
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Integration with Google contacts would be awesome because I
| already have them all there in groups and with notes.
| mro_name wrote:
| would have expected a plain text aproach.
| binbag wrote:
| jedberg wrote:
| 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.
| jakub_g wrote:
| 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 more invasive those
| days. I don't remember when I last called someone else than my
| close family (and very close friends upon first fixing a
| date/time for the call).
| calrueb wrote:
| Perhaps a 15-30 year old thing, but for those people in my
| B/C/D list (never thought about it that way before), one thing
| I do is if they are active on Instagram I will send a response
| to their story if it looks interesting. More casual than a
| text, but it opens the door to a quick conversation.
| adwww wrote:
| Yeah I tried giving up social media for a while and just
| texting my actual friends etc instead.
|
| It works for the groups of friends that we have active WhatsApp
| groups with. But especially texting friends of the opposite sex
| - now that we're grown up, married, etc - just feels invasive,
| unless it's asking a specific question, or to arrange
| something.
| endymi0n wrote:
| I feel exactly the same, and honestly, it keeps me from
| approaching some people I'd like to.
|
| If anyone has figured out a pretext or mental framework for
| warming up conversations that have effectively died long ago,
| I would be delighted to know about it.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| I make sure to end each conversation properly. Something
| like "I have to go, I have something to do, that was nice
| talking to you". That way you can start a new conversation
| 6 months later and it doesn't feel awkward.
| goostavos wrote:
| To muddy the waters, I'd find this super duper weird.
| I've never had a chain of texts end with a formal "close"
| to the conversation. Doubly so since texting is async.
| I'd finally look at your "I have to go" message hours
| after you sent it and be confused at the update.
| behringer wrote:
| I like to just mention some bit of news or even weather
| and ask for their take, bam instant convo that says you
| thought of them while living your life and now you can
| take the convo in whatever direction.
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| I agree with you. The author is trying to automate human
| connection - but it probably doesn't come off genuine.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| 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 common sense. I think it's just that in real
| life you're better off not keeping score on some things.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| 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.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Oh yeah, I'm saying if you actually did the Stardew
| Valley spreadsheet in real life I think it would work
| well, but people might be creeped out if you showed it to
| them lol.
|
| Good point about the Boss thing - I had a boss who was
| super into cars and I've dabbled in working on my own. It
| was at least something for us to chat about.
| m3nu wrote:
| I find it nice, if it's not spammy. Two relatively distant
| friends starting do a quarterly "newsletter" of their projects
| and I found myself getting in touch with them more often. Same
| with strangers on social media. Often good things happen when
| you 'just go for it'.
| nefitty wrote:
| Yeah, a big part of being social is about stifling the
| expectation of rejection. No one is going to yell at you for
| asking how their day was. No one is going to call the cops if
| you send them a text "Hey, wanted to catch up. How's your
| week going? I saw this super insightful comment by nefitty on
| HN about being social and it made me realize we hadn't talked
| in a bit."
| LightG wrote:
| Just wait until everyone is doing this though!
|
| The next Ask HN thread will be: "How to deflect all these
| people who suddenly want to stay in touch or keep texting
| me every 3 weeks on the dot"
| jacobrussell wrote:
| I have an extremely similar system hacked together myself. It has
| definitely been a game changer for my relationships. I created it
| because I decided about a year ago I wanted to be a better
| friend, and the best friends I had were extremely intentional. I
| wasn't going to just get more intentional naturally, so this
| system helped me get there. Being able to reflect on what we
| talked about last time and get reminded to reach out after on a
| predefined interval is extremely helpful!
| paradite wrote:
| This looks really nice. I don't use airtable, but I use Notion
| and the formulas in the post seems similar to those in Notion
| database. I wonder if it is possible to do something similar in
| Notion.
| pitouli wrote:
| 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 for
| example.
|
| You can see screenshots on the website https://kipinto.ch or on
| the app stores, but description is in French (even if the app is
| available in English)
|
| An interesting observation we have done, is that by making the
| effort of taking notes of what you talked about, you remember
| better --even without reading the notes-- next time you see the
| person.
|
| It can feel "disgusting", but in fact the effort of keeping
| contact with a person when it is not easy to do so should be seen
| as a positive sign of your intention to strengthen this
| relationship.
| ship3x wrote:
| I'd like to test it. Can you make it available to download in
| the UK? Currently seems to be unavailable. Thanks!
| dvh1990 wrote:
| I get why someone may need tools like this, especially if they
| are in sales or a similar profession, but I can't help thinking
| how disingenuous this is.
|
| Moreover, it's easy for me to sniff out and block people who try
| to keep me "engaged" with systems like this.
|
| If you want to engaged me, I hope you have a specific reason to
| do so.
|
| If I want to engage you I will just do it and you can bet that I
| won't waste your time on idle chit-chat.
|
| Otherwise, I have friends and family that don't get enough of my
| time as it is.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Sales wants to sell you something. This guy wants to get in
| contact with people for its own sake.
|
| One could imagine a salesperson just thinking about a potential
| customer and then calling them immediately. No CMS involved.
| Just like how you could randomly think of a friend and call
| them. The respective motivations are still the same.
|
| The "just do it" distinction is meaningless w.r.t. intent.
| You're just being uncharitable.
| jjice wrote:
| I could see this being useful for friends that I haven't seen
| or don't have the opportunity to see. When I was in school, I
| interned in a few different states over the Summers, working
| with and meeting a ton of great people. We aren't best friends
| by any means, but I'd like to know how Chris is doing, ya know?
| We both know we're just acquaintances at this point, but I like
| catching up with them once and a while, and it's easy to forget
| otherwise.
|
| > If I want to engage you I will just do it and you can bet
| that I won't waste your time on idle chit-chat.
|
| Probably a difference in personality between us, since I find
| the idle chit-chat kind of nice, but I can absolutely
| understand being on the other end.
| kzisme wrote:
| At least for me when friendships/relationships become
| transactional it loses a lot of the value. This method of staying
| in touch feels _very_ transactional, and I just imagine sending
| some random person you spoke to a few times in high
| school/university a message every 6 months - 1 year.
|
| Some people aren't meant to be in your life forever, and that's
| okay! However, there the people you choose to make time for will
| stick around.
| jjice wrote:
| I have a similar system, but mine is just a Python script and a
| text file. I hardcode people in the file in different categories
| and the file stores the recently contacted people. Once the file
| is the same length as the hardcoded people, the script clears it
| and we start anew. It emails me an idea of an opening line that I
| can expand upon so I can streamline the contacting, since I could
| sit down for 5 minutes without thinking how to open a
| conversation.
|
| I really like systems like this. Some of my favorite things on HN
| are about automating life, but without removing the "you" part of
| it, just making it easier to manage.
|
| PS: if anyone has any examples, I'd love to hear.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| If you're doing something remotely similar to this, please, just
| add unsubscribe button.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Man, I hope I never get on that guy's list...
| rattray wrote:
| I like this. I've done something vaguely similar but more
| lightweight/ad-hoc, which is to just send an email to, eg,
| "every3months@followupthen.com" with the subject line "Get in
| touch with so-and-so".
|
| A proper Airtable of contacts, or a tool like Monica, sounds
| great - just nervous that it'll fall out of date.
| runjake wrote:
| My initial thought as I read the first paragraph was: this seems
| kind of sociopathic (in a non-dramatic way).
|
| I ended the article with "hmm, a system like this could be
| directly useful to me, especially at work."
| pishpash wrote:
| Asymmetric? Ok, it take somebody else's time, too. Reaching out
| is no work for people with no real work.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| So he's treating people like assets, not friends, and these
| assets need to be checked on on a regular basis. If there were
| friends, he'd not need to be reminded of contacting them.
|
| He'd _miss_ contacting them.
|
| So instead he needs a tool to remind him of that "friend" he
| needs to contact, because pretending to care is beneficial. One
| might some day need them.
|
| It's incredibly sad that his social life, or rather: the illusion
| of a social life, is being dictated by a machine.
| playpause wrote:
| If I write my friend's birthdays on a calendar, prompting me to
| contact them on their birthdays, do you think that's treating
| them as assets not friends? If not, what is the relevant
| difference?
| erwincoumans wrote:
| No he doesn't, you reach the wrong conclusion.
|
| It is more similar to a birthday calendar reminder.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > He'd miss contacting them.
|
| No, _you_ would miss contacting them. But he is not you.
|
| Your comment can be read in two ways. Perhaps you think
| everyone should be like you and those who are different are
| "sad". I hope I don't need to explain why this is wrong. Or
| perhaps you think someone who isn't like you doesn't deserve to
| have any human contact and should be alone. What a horrible
| thing to think.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| What's the alternative here? Stop contacting his friends unless
| he misses them? Also, why are you such a judgmental dick about
| it?
| antihero wrote:
| That seems like a very neurotypical view point. Of course
| people miss people, however, some people (especially people
| with for instance ADHD) often forget stuff and get distracted,
| so having an extra layer of organisation can be extremely
| helpful.
| Ialdaboth wrote:
| I guess you must be pretty young and havent experimented yet
| how easy it is to get swallowed by life.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Well I am not find of his method, especially about doing a
| classification of people you would call friends. This is
| something I would hate to do and would hate feeling others put
| me in a drawer.
|
| On the other hand while local friends can be easy to reach,
| invite or bump into randomly maintaining long distance
| friendship is a lot harder to do and require actively looking
| for that relation to not die. It is ok not to talk to friends
| every month when they are living far away nor does it diminish
| your feeling towards them and the pleasure you would have to
| meet them even if it takes 10y to do so. However if you are not
| actively maintaining a relation, and that requires some
| additionnal efforts as it is not natural to reach for people
| you aren't bumping into every other week/month, you might
| simply lose trail. It is relatively easy to reach to someone
| who has social media accounts under his own name and never
| changed phone number. It requires a lot more of detective work
| to reach out to people who aren't active on social medias. I
| have lived in several countries and I had to resort to use
| linkedin to get back in touch with some of my friends and it
| can took months for them to reply as most people don't even log
| on linkedin on a regular basis unless they are actually looking
| for a job. Some of them I lost complete trail as I couldn't
| find any social media account either.
|
| So automatising your own reminders and force yourself to talk
| to people you might not reach out on a regular basis, because
| your local social circle already keeps you busy a lot, is not
| necessarily a bad thing, even if it feels forced.
| CalRobert wrote:
| There are a lot of people I care about, but sometimes you just
| _forget_. Or you remember, but it's too late to call them, or
| they're in a bad time zone, or they mostly use FB and you hate
| FB. After two kids, rebuilding a derelict house, etc. I found I
| had to be more intentional about keeping any friendships alive,
| and this basically seems like a more involved version of
| keeping friends' birthdays in a calendar to drop them a line.
| ivanche wrote:
| How did you conclude he's talking about friends? In the whole
| article word "friend" doesn't appear even once. Also, a person
| can hardly have hundreds of friends. Three, sure. Seven, very
| probably. Twelve, maybe. But hundreds? Impossible.
| anoncow wrote:
| Some people can't express and maintain relationships like other
| people but still like their friends. Having a system which can
| make my friends feel that I value them (which I do, but find
| difficult expressing) helps some people maintain a semblance of
| a social life.
| xelxebar wrote:
| > If there [sic] were friends... He'd _miss_ contacting them.
|
| Interesting! It looks like you are indirectly articulating
| something about your personal value system and how you express
| and/or receive caring. Are you familiar with the Five Love
| Languages [0] idea? The bosic concept (and book) are tailored
| for couples and couples counseling, but it generalizes in
| obvious ways to platonic relationships.
|
| Essentially, it posits that everyone expresses caring and seeks
| expressions of caring in specific ways, so called "languages".
| It's entirely possible---probable in fact!---that the ways in
| which you personally express caring don't match up with the
| kinds of expressions that make your friend (or lover) feel most
| cared for.
|
| YMMV, but I've personally found this idea to difuse a lot of
| "judgemental" feelings towards others, especially in close
| relationships.
|
| [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages
| ivanhoe wrote:
| > So instead he needs a tool to remind him of that "friend" he
| needs to contact, because pretending to care is beneficial. One
| might some day need them.
|
| Regardless whether Dunbar's number is real or not, one cannot
| have "hundreds" of actual friends. So we're not really talking
| about friendships here, but about maintaining a network of
| contacts - or acquaintances at best - and that type of
| relationship is usually mutually based on the premise that "One
| might some day need them", there's nothing wrong about
| approaching it that way. And even though you're not super
| close, keeping in touch regularly is very important aspect of
| keeping your social ring alive. I'm too lazy and disorganized
| to approach it the way the author describes, but I totally see
| how it can be a beneficial socializing strategy in long terms.
| batushka3 wrote:
| For so long we were (and still are) called a human resource,
| whole departments and studies devoted for human resource
| management. Treating people like assest fits here.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| Doesn't make it okay. At all.
|
| "Human resources" is dehumanizing.
|
| Treating people like assets is dehumanizing.
|
| If I told my friends that I had software reminding me of
| contacting them, they'd consider that we're not actually
| friends, because _friends don 't need to be reminded of
| friends_.
|
| When there's no bond reminding me, then they're not friends.
| One cares about friends. When you forget about them, then
| you're not actually caring.
| Aeolos wrote:
| It appears that you feel strongly about this and that is
| ok.
|
| I would only ask you to please be kind to people who do not
| share your experiences, social skills or background, e.g.
| introverts, people suffering from social anxiety, people
| who are on the spectrum or have ADHD... Hundreds of
| millions of people, who are fully cable of caring, loving
| and having close friends, yet have trouble maintaining
| friendships not because they are bad friends, but because
| their brains and emotions work differently through no
| choice or fault of their own.
|
| If such a tool can help someone maintain a close friendship
| that would otherwise have fizzled, then that tool has made
| the world a slightly better place.
|
| I don't expect this to change your opinion, but it might be
| useful to hear a different perspective.
| kortilla wrote:
| This lame take is like claiming a birthday gift is
| meaningless because someone used a calendar reminder.
|
| Some people have busy lives but still have many friends
| (especially ones spread around geographically as you get
| older). It's normal adult behavior to forget to contact
| them for months.
|
| > When there's no bond reminding me, then they're not
| friends.
|
| This sounds like some obsessive behavior. I think you may
| have a much higher bar for friendship than most people do.
|
| I have 20-30 people I would consider strong enough friends
| to have them stay in my house for a weekend on short notice
| (to give you an idea of trust level here). I contact many
| of them no more than once every couple of months only when
| a shared interest reminds me of them.
|
| > One cares about friends. When you forget about them, then
| you're not actually caring.
|
| That's not how that works. At least it doesn't match the
| definition of "caring". It sounds more like "obsessing".
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| He didn't talk about friends you are. Still you can safely
| assume most of the people in the three weeks category are close
| contacts.
|
| Unless you are in college and have little to no obligations, it
| gets hard to stay in touch with all your friends and keep track
| of what is happening to them. It's not treating people like
| assets. He is putting efforts on his side towards keeping
| connections and to do that he needs tools to help.
|
| What does it change that he uses reminder to think about
| reaching out? In the end he is still the one doing work towards
| fostering relationships.
| lelandfe wrote:
| The author explicitly says the goal of this work is for
| opportunities
| rowanajmarshall wrote:
| Yes - opportunities for house parties, for new flatmates.
| For joining a D&D group, or a sports team. Maybe for a new
| job, or a new hire. Or even a future partner.
| gostsamo wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Most importantly, I always send the kind of messages I'd
| like to receive. They're short, genuine, and (ideally)
| helpful. I never try to sell anything and there's no agenda
| other than to keep in touch.
|
| You might've read that:
|
| > So unless you have a solid system, chances are high that
| you won't reach out to people regularly and miss out on a
| ton of fun and opportunities.
|
| but intentionally miss the fun part and treat
| "opportunities" only in thebusiness context and do not
| allow for alternative interpretations like intellectual or
| personal development.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| The author says it's the easiest and most effective way to
| make your life more serendipitous and that if you don't you
| will miss on fun and opportunities which is very true. I
| never go have coffee or enjoy unforeseen activities with
| people I don't speak to. Having a large network of lively
| relationship is indeed a sure way to have more things
| happening in your life. Also people enjoy other people
| reaching out to them. Once again there is nothing unusable
| in what OP is doing. Having tools to help you keep in touch
| with people is a necessity in any position where you need
| to maintain good relationships with a large number of
| people. It takes effort and is a good thing.
| otikik wrote:
| I don't read it as being _the_ goal. More like one of his
| motivations.
| gjulianm wrote:
| I think there are two sides to this: scheduling the contact
| and triggering the thought to contact. The first one is ok,
| we schedule things we care about all the time. The second one
| is the weird one, and to me the OP is more about the second
| part.
|
| If your problem is that you're busy doing things, an email in
| the morning (probably not the only one you have) is not going
| to help too much. Contacts will still get delayed in favor of
| other things. To me, the OP system reads like a system that
| doesn't help with scheduling, but with triggering the
| thoughts.
|
| For example, say that a friend tells me they're going through
| a rough time and I want to spend some time talking to them,
| but I'm busy and don't have that much time. The system
| doesn't have a "contact NOW" trigger, for example.
|
| I also find it weird that there's a "three week contact"
| category. I'd guess that for close contacts, something
| reminds you of them every once in a while, you probably don't
| need anything more than "hey what's up" in a message so you
| can send it whenever, and they probably also contact you
| frequently. I don't think the system would be helpful in
| those cases (mainly because the DB and the actual contacts
| would quickly desync and the reminders would not be on time
| and appropriate) so I'm left wondering what's happening
| there.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| People with ADHD sometimes forget people even exist when
| they're out of sight.
|
| Just because your built-in OS lacks a scheduler and
| notifications to remind you to keep a connection with friends
| doesn't mean you don't care about them.
|
| Sometimes the person might even receive the notification but
| fails to act on it because of poor social conditioning.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| "if you cared, you'd remember"
|
| glad you have this experience, i dont think all of us do. i
| care deeply but seem to forget people exist and that makes me
| sad and dislike myself. i wish i could just remember. id still
| have so many friends if i did.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| Well, then ... why did you forget, when you (believe you've)
| actually cared?
| koonsolo wrote:
| Do you know that Time Management Matrix with urgent/non-
| urgent on one side and important/not-important on the
| other?
|
| Most of the time, life pushes us towards the urgent &
| important, and even urgent & not-important. When you have a
| busy life (full time job building a side business with a
| family with kids), it's just very hard to put the non-
| urgent & important on the agenda.
|
| Not all things that are important are urgent.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| why does anyone forget?
| Juliate wrote:
| Well, life?
|
| Just managing your own home requires a lot of organisation,
| and even if you do care, you will have a hard time to cope
| for long without some tools to help you (calendars, notes,
| schedules, only to name those). Unless someone does it for
| you. Or unless you live a very simple life that can fit in
| your head all the time, of course.
|
| Likewise, seeing your friends fading away, not responding
| to you might be because they've just forgotten you, or
| don't want to see you anymore, or they are just drowning in
| their own life. And maybe with time they will cope/react
| differently, maybe not.
|
| Considering that friendship/care only can be spontaneous
| and not prepared/provisional, this is disingenuous and
| borderline toxic (to both you and others).
| yreg wrote:
| This reads a bit like asking a depressed person why they
| don't just stop being sad.
| ghusbands wrote:
| There's poor memory, depression, ADHD, low-level addiction,
| social anxiety, poor memory and a great number of other
| things that can keep one from contacting friends.
|
| There are many people in this thread who clearly do care
| and have trouble doing/remembering, so I'm not sure why
| you'd choose to respond this way to someone you're more
| likely to hurt.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Yeah, it's seems like poor empathy or a lack of
| imagination or life experience to not be able to conceive
| how people can forget things they care about. We'd all do
| well to remember that any given thing that's easy for us
| might be difficult for someone else, and not necessarily
| through some personal failing on their part.
|
| Also, I see what you did there. :)
| Kiro wrote:
| You think you're promoting care but you come off as
| extremely obnoxious and the kind of person I certainly
| wouldn't want as a friend.
| Milner08 wrote:
| You're not the only one bro. I am pretty sure its not just us
| two either. Dont feel too hard on your self, but use that
| energy towards staying in contact. Write a list of people to
| talk to, etc.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Similarly I often think of my friends plus wider circle, but
| I'm terribly unorganized except I make a conscious effort.
| That means writing things down, set reminders and so on. Love
| and organization of social life are orthogonal.
| pell wrote:
| >but I'm terribly unorganized
|
| I really should call XY is such a common thought that fades
| away a second later. Even if it's someone I am really fond
| of. If they're not in my immediate circle, it's going to be
| additional work to keep that relationship alive.
|
| Putting it on my calendar or as a reminder actually makes
| me reach out to that person. Win-win. If anything, this
| shows me _caring_ about someone. Many of these
| conversations with the people I have in mind often start
| where we left off too - no matter how many weeks or months
| in between - which makes me think this all is not about a
| lack of connection.
| p_l wrote:
| This reminds me of anecdotes from... Time Management for
| System Administrators, by Tom Limoncelli. He talks
| exactly about "Won't people think I don't care if I have
| to write it down in a diary?" and mentions how, at least
| in his experience when reaching for diary for everything,
| people actually reacted positively - the extra effort of
| ensuring a note was made, calendar appointment created,
| schedule arranged made them feel that he was willing to
| spend some effort on them, instead of just doing the
| minimum.
| Talanes wrote:
| > I really should call XY is such a common thought that
| fades away a second later.
|
| This is exactly right. I am constantly thinking of people
| that I should get in touch with, but never at a time that
| would actually be appropriate to do so. It'll be the
| random work-day thought that disappears by the time I'm
| done, or it will be sometime unreasonably late.
| rossmohax wrote:
| It is not much different than having birthday of your family
| members in the calendar. It is just a tool to remind you to
| make contact, what contact will be like is entirely up to you.
| rcdwealth wrote:
| lvturner wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with your take here, it's rather
| uncharitable.
|
| I've lost touch with friends because I failed to do this sort
| of thing, it's easy to not keep up with people when there is no
| immediate driver or common interest (perhaps I'm atypical or
| neurodivergent) this is multiplied when you leave a country and
| no longer see some people on a regular basis.
|
| A system like this would ensure my forgetful nature doesn't
| kick in and give me that reason I need just to check in on
| someone I actually care about but haven't had the opportunity
| to speak to in a while.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not
| _miss_ them?
|
| If you did, why didn't you contact them?
|
| If you didn't, why do you care?
|
| One can not _forget_ about friends, one can only stop caring.
| pell wrote:
| > One can not forget about friends, one can only stop
| caring.
|
| You seem to use forgetting in a sense that is akin to
| erasing a person from your past, as if they never existed.
| That's very drastic. People do forget to reach out not
| necessarily because they don't care but because things slip
| their mind. Life happens. Stress happens. The proximity
| isn't that close anymore. And so on. Isn't setting up a
| system like this not a good effort on their part? An
| example of them caring enough to make sure their
| relationship stays alive? "Don't be a stranger" sometimes
| takes a bit of work. So why not use tools that can help
| with that?
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I grew up moving a lot before email was ubiquitous.
|
| Also all my family is overseas.
|
| As a kid I would try so hard to stay in touch and it never
| worked. The harder I tried the more it hurt for those
| attempts to fail.
|
| But I'd see family once a year or so and we'd catch up and
| it was always wonderful.
|
| I think about people all the time, but it doesn't trigger
| my reaching out.
|
| It's like a really deeply ingrained learned helplessness or
| generalized relational despair.
|
| Some people for a variety of reasons, some cognitive, some
| environmental, don't have their internal desires
| intrinsically tied to the psychological pressure to take
| action.
|
| Due to surgeries and anesthesia I also developed
| aphantasia, so anything short of in person interactions
| feels quite hollow.
|
| Be glad your experience in life is healthy and normative,
| for some of us it takes effort.
| rimliu wrote:
| I do miss some people. I do not contact them, because I do
| not think they feel the same way about me, and I do not
| want to bother them. Social anxiety is a thing.
| skydhash wrote:
| Or just in your mind you still have that bundle of
| memories which make you underestimate the time passed
| since last contact because you've been busy with life.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not
| miss them?
|
| Well yes you can not miss your friend for long period of
| time because they are far away and a large enough social
| circle keeps you so busy locally that your mind do not get
| the opportunity to feel it.
|
| Anyone who has been living in different areas/countries
| lost track to some real friends. There is always a moment
| when you feel you might want to reach out to them again but
| sometimes it is too late.
| lvturner wrote:
| Of course I miss them and I do contact them when I do so --
| though sometimes it's too late and their phone number has
| changed or their social media account has been de-
| activiated.
|
| I'm just saying I could make MORE effort, and I don't see a
| prompt to do so as being harmful.
| golover721 wrote:
| It's not about forgetting. I don't forget my friends, but
| at the same time life happens. Kids, work obligations,
| relationships. It's easy to forget to reach out to friends
| or acquaintances. Easy to underestimate when the last time
| you made contact. That's just life.
| conartist wrote:
| Agreed. Sometimes life just gets in the way and if
| something isn't urgent or can be put off for a few days
| in order to handle the immediate and now it is easy to
| forgot what isn't right in front of you.
|
| I'm sure most have the best of intentions that they will
| reach out to friends and keep in touch, but the best laid
| plans of mice and men...I don't see why having a system
| to do this so bad?
| horstmeyer wrote:
| When I miss people, I often don't have time to reach out.
| When I have time, I often don't remember that I wanted to
| reach out to people. Sometimes life keeps us too busy.
| hwers wrote:
| He also pretty much screws up the whole system by announcing it
| like this. There's no way I'd feel anything but manipulation
| coming my way if I was his friend and a message from this guy
| popped up in my notifications.
| personjerry wrote:
| I think describing other people as "friends" or "assets" are
| just labels you've made up. I think it's unnecessary to be
| condescending by saying someone else's interpretation is
| "incredibly sad".
| verisimi wrote:
| He's delegating his humanity and friendships into a
| spreadsheet! Next stop, do the interactions themselves in the
| cloud!!
|
| Makes sense for networking though. Which I think is what he's
| actually getting at.
| rnkn wrote:
| Yep. The author is a legit sociopath. This should in no way be
| considered acceptable human behaviour.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| A sociopath is someone who recklessly and remorselessly harms
| others to get what they want.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorde.
| ..
|
| This guy is probably at most ADHD or Aspergers, and simply
| forgets to contact people he doesn't physically come across
| on a regular basis.
| psd1 wrote:
| Wow. Awareness of the lived experience of others: nil points.
|
| If I'm more charitable than you have been, I'll grant that
| you simply haven't carried the burden that I have, and that
| is unfair for me to expect everyone to have moderate levels
| of empathy, or to actively try to understand their fellow
| humans.
|
| A fair proportion of the people who pushed OP to the top of
| HN are probably just looking to live a life in accordance
| with healthy social values. Try not to be a cunt, would you?
| smilespray wrote:
| While I don't attempt to solve life problems by creating a
| database and writing a bunch of code, I think you're going a
| bit overboard.
| otikik wrote:
| I see how it might look like that, but you are missing a
| critical point.
|
| Everyone is different. What comes naturally to some doesn't
| come naturally to others.
|
| For a lot of people (me included) keeping in touch with others
| doesn't come "naturally". We _miss_ contact, and yet we sheldom
| establish it. There are many reasons for this: poor time
| management skills, low self-esteem, simple lack of practice,
| etc. In any case, it takes effort to break out of it.
|
| Try to think about something that others do, and that you would
| like to do, but is difficult for you. Exercise, learn a new
| language, go to bed earlier, eat more healthily... whatever.
| This might give you a perspective of what it is like to have
| this "friction".
|
| I see what this person is doing as a way to remove the friction
| and create a new habit. I have no doubt that when "they gets
| the thing rolling" with someone it will gradually easy to keep
| engaged without the machine "dictating" anything.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I've seen a comedian interview saying that friendship wasn't
| a natural sense, and with age he had to train himself a bit
| too maintain things. We all have various levels and have to
| find our ways to improve.
| [deleted]
| l33tbro wrote:
| Then why do they frame connection in terms of a habit that
| yields "unlimited upside" and prevents you from missing out
| on opportunities?
|
| You are absolutely right that people are different, but this
| person comes across a little transactional and an exemplar of
| the Zuckerborg meme.
| usrusr wrote:
| The kind of person who needs a process like that would most
| likely also need a very strong push to follow through with
| it. Chances are cosplaying entrepreneur lingo is the nth
| iteration in a long line of attempts to convince
| themselves, new year's resolutions and the like, with all
| of the more dignified approaches having utterly failed.
|
| I'm in the same boats, both of them: the author's, failing
| to keep in touch and being aware of it, and yours, being
| intuitively revulsed by the systematic approach. I even
| refuse taking part in that weird ritual of Facebook
| birthday wishes, because I consider it somewhat dishonest
| to congratulate when I didn't remember myself.
| dskloet wrote:
| Why is it wrong to see a good friendship as very valuable?
| l33tbro wrote:
| Because valuing close friends through the lens of what
| personal gain they may yield is more than a little
| sociopathic?
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| So we should become friends with people we don't value?
| Like random people on the street? It's a good idea, but
| would be exhausting.
| p_l wrote:
| 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 often. Some
| so often that he actually pushes his schedule to ensure
| regular time for meetings, something that can be
| _ridiculously hard_ even without crippling anxiety.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| 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 away and separated by the distance of
| time. Not everyone will agree with the OP, but I'm always
| impressed with old friends from 20 years ago that still
| keep contact.
|
| Something to consider.
| p_l wrote:
| 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 ;)
| dskloet wrote:
| Why? Happiness and valuable shared experiences are also
| gains.
| l33tbro wrote:
| What about my alcoholic friend I've known for 20 years
| that is destroying his life and lashing out at me right
| now because he is sick? Or my heavily depressed friend of
| 30 years who I sat with on the weekend? Not everything is
| about extracting maximum personal happiness. Friendship
| can also be about service.
| dskloet wrote:
| If you care about these people then presumably it does
| make you happier in the long term to let them know that
| you care about them. Especially if it's not that pleasant
| in the moment I imagine having a system to remind you
| could be helpful.
| otikik wrote:
| I think you might be overblowing things. The quotes are:
|
| > Staying in touch [...] require[s] little effort, time and
| resources but has an unlimited upside
|
| In this case the "unlimited upside" is set in
| contraposition to the amount of effort it requires. It
| might not exactly true (it's not "unlimited") but it's
| "big".
|
| > Unfortunately, for most people (me included) this isn't
| something that happens naturally. So unless you have a
| solid system, chances are high that you won't reach out to
| people regularly and miss out on a ton of fun and
| opportunities.
|
| What puts it in context for me is that first one in the
| second quote: this article is addressing people with
| difficulties keeping in touch. If you're not that, the
| article is not for you, and at's ok.
|
| Once that's clear, the other phrases read to me like
| motivational speech - for others and for the author
| themselves.
|
| If the article was about weight lifting, it would start by
| talking about the health benefits it can bring.
|
| A lot of friendships are (mutually) beneficial. Others are
| more neutral, and yes, some are pernicious. But you are not
| going to get people motivated to maintain them or make new
| ones if you lead with that. That'd be starting the weight
| lifting article by listing all the different injuries you
| can get.
|
| > Zuckerborg meme.
|
| I think you might be showing a lack of empathy here.
| pell wrote:
| > and miss out on a ton of fun and opportunities.
|
| This is the actual sentence you are referring to and it
| seems omitting the "ton of fun" part is a bit disingenuous
| as it clearly stands against this perceived technocratic
| and opportunistic use of people. The word "opportunity" is
| not used any other time in the article, by the way.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > We miss contact, and yet we sheldom establish it.
|
| That's me.
|
| that's why my friends are the ones who contact me.
|
| they are my reminder.
|
| if I start contacting them now, they would think I am going
| to die soon.
|
| > I see what this person is doing as a way to remove the
| friction and create a new habit
|
| It doesn't work like that though.
|
| It's not like using an alarm to wake up at a certain hour and
| suddenly you realize your sleep cycle has adapted, what this
| person is doing is more like a grocery list, you'll never
| stop needing one, if you needed one in the first place.
|
| Moreover, the simple fact that people are in different lists
| and lists have to be maintained and updated, it makes it more
| like a job than a habit.
| stavros wrote:
| I have a friend like that. Whenever we meet we have fun,
| but she never contacts me. She tells me that's just how she
| is with everyone, and that she really likes hanging out,
| she just doesn't initiate, which is fair, but it still
| feels like she doesn't value me, no matter how much I
| logically know otherwise.
|
| These days I try to override the feeling and initiate
| first, because I know that she really does want to hang
| out, but the feeling is deeply ingrained and hard to shake.
|
| What I'm basically saying is that maybe you should try a
| bit more, because this way has certainly lost you a few
| friends over the years. Maybe it works for you, though, no
| judgment.
| pirate787 wrote:
| You are rationalizing your selfishness and laziness.
| Relationships are a two-way street.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| I think you deserve an answer, even if people are
| downvoting you:
|
| I guess you are not completely aware that you just said
| that my friends are stupid because they accept to be
| mistreated by someone who's _selfish an lazy_.
|
| But guess what, friendship in not only a two way street,
| it's also usually a non overlapping set of different
| personalities.
|
| A friend is that person that has those qualities you
| miss, that kinda completes you, and vice versa.
|
| And is that person that accepts you for being you,
| exactly you, not some imaginary version of you.
|
| What I miss in something, I compensate with something
| else that my friends miss.
|
| Easy as that.
|
| Rest assured that if they wanted me to call them more,
| they'd tell me.
|
| p.s. If you don't accept as a friend someone who doesn't
| call you as often as you do, you have a simple choice:
| find people like you.
|
| My friends don't mind and after almost 30 years, I don't
| think they will suddenly start.
| skinkestek wrote:
| I called my best friend this January, because I hadn't
| spoken to him in months or years.
|
| I decided to do it. It didn't come naturally.
|
| He was happy I called.
|
| I don't know next time we'll call because none of us are
| the kind who does call for no good reason (maybe a reason
| why we like each other ; - )
| watwut wrote:
| The reality check is that people who do proactively contact
| others need to put effort into it. And if you are not
| willing to reciprocate, eventually they figure out it is
| not fair to them. They tend to eventually gravitate toward
| those that do put effort into it too.
| erpellan wrote:
| For some people memory is event-driven not interrupt-driven.
| They can remember all the steps in a complex task, or when with
| friends, all their shared history but forget to take out the
| trash, or birthdays, or to call their friends.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| This reminds me. I am about to go to bed and have not brushed
| my teeth.
| yreg wrote:
| I have lost several friends, even good friends by failing to
| contact each other. If you have many friends who move around
| the world a lot it's very easy to happen. I miss them very
| much.
|
| I don't miss them as assets as you say. I believe that if I
| suddenly needed their help and asked for it, they would help me
| - and it goes the other way as well ofc. I'm not concerned by
| that.
|
| But how do you start talking to someone after years and years
| of radio silence? Even more importantly, how do you make sure
| you won't slip out of touch again, other than using a system?
| jollybean wrote:
| This comment is far more cynical than his life.
|
| My grandmother knew hundreds of people. Her little black book
| was massive. She had a system as well for reaching out.
|
| Your emotions are good for regulating your relationships with
| 5-10 people, that's about it.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of
| contacting them.
|
| No, things just slip your mind, especially if there are a lot
| of other things going on in life.
|
| People forget to take medications that when not taken lead to
| psychotic breaks. It isn't because they don't care about being
| sane.
|
| People forget their kids in cars. They didn't casually want
| them dead of overheating.
|
| I have friends that when time allows, we speak to each other
| for hours every day. When time allows. Plenty of times one or
| the other has forgotten that the other existed for a few weeks.
|
| Things get forgotten.
| gjulianm wrote:
| I don't think the comparison is apt.
|
| I think this is something that's being glossed over
| completely: friendships are two-way, and also flexible. It's
| not a medication that needs to be taken on a schedule, and
| it's not a kid that completely depends on you to do things. I
| don't think a relationship that's only alive because of
| scheduled contacts can be called a friendship.
| pell wrote:
| I didn't read this as asset management at all, nor as someone
| managing their actual friends in a list. It seems more like
| these are various people who they've crossed paths with at some
| point but who aren't overly close anymore. It's a system set in
| place to actively keep in touch with people. I understand that
| there is a component to this that feels very artificial and
| maybe therefore quite cold. But consider the other side too:
| someone is not the best at keeping a contact alive but still
| values the relationship very much so they put in the effort to
| create an external structure to help them out. Isn't that a
| pretty warm thought after all?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I don't like this method much either but in fairness to the
| author, as you get older and our social circle inevitably
| widens with friends from old sports clubs, old neighbors,
| friends from school, colleague, university, old jobs, friends
| who are kids friends parents from school, et al, and thus it
| gets harder and harder to keep track of everyone given much
| effort it often takes to keep our head above water in our own
| busy lives. How many people say "we only catch up once every
| couple of years?" At least this method allows the author to
| keep those connections open for people he wants to stay in
| contact with. Even if it might seem a little impersonal from a
| superficial standpoint.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of
| contacting them. He'd miss contacting them.
|
| As someone who needs a separate text file for remembering
| important dates (from where i stand, calendars are just weird,
| the months names arbitrary, the amounts of days in each also an
| example of some odd legacy system), i disagree.
|
| If my brain refuses to work well for dates for a few dozen
| people, why would someone else remember to contact more people,
| especially given how busy the lives of many are? Is it a bit
| nonconventional to develop an automation system for that?
| Maybe, but then again, people don't even bat an eye when
| putting down events in their Google Calendar or whatever.
|
| "If those events mattered, you wouldn't need to be reminded of
| them." doesn't sound like a reasonable argument to my brain,
| even though it might to someone else's.
|
| > It's incredibly sad that his social life, or rather: the
| illusion of a social life, is being dictated by a machine.
|
| It's not sad (to me and probably others), please don't downplay
| someone putting in the effort to address what would otherwise
| be a shortcoming. Even though a bit odd, if it works for them,
| props to that person!
|
| For further reading, have a look at Dunbar's number:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
|
| Why wouldn't we expand past the limitations of our brains, if
| that is beneficial to both ourselves and others, especially
| when extending that reasoning to a professional setting?
|
| "I should send a Christmas greeting to that cool boss i had
| years ago." probably doesn't occur to people that often, but is
| still a nice thing to do!
|
| Personally, without that text file of mine (or reminders from
| Facebook or whatever for others), i wouldn't remember most
| birthdays (of friends or acquaintances) or other celebration
| days, which would be bad for everyone - to me, because of
| feeling bad after forgetting about those days, and for others
| because of not receiving greetings or gifts.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > If there were friends, he'd not need to be reminded of
| contacting them.
|
| That sounds rather strong. It's not unusual to keep a Christmas
| card list, which is pretty much the same idea.
|
| Personally I don't see a problem unless it's automatically
| sending messages giving the impression they're not automated.
| The blog post makes it clear that all the messages he sends are
| written by him, the system only prompts him to write+send them.
| I don't see an issue in using a system to send reminders.
|
| Incidentally this topic has been discussed before in a thread 7
| months back. [0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27643328
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >So instead he needs a tool to remind him of that "friend" he
| needs to contact, because pretending to care is beneficial. One
| might some day need them.
|
| You've basically described every single family relationship
| ever.
|
| You don't like catching up with them, and they don't like
| catching up with you, but you do it anyway because one day you
| might need a kidney or a ticket out of Warsaw.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > He'd miss contacting them.
|
| I keep fond memories of nearly all people I know. I'd help them
| on the spot and have a pleasent conversarion if they contacted
| me.
|
| Yet I never miss contacting people I know.
| mlatu wrote:
| Look, it's great you can handle your friends with ease.
|
| It's really great your life didn't mess you up to a point where
| contacting people you would normally call friends induces
| anxiety.
|
| Really, congratulations to your great and happy life.
|
| Others have to rely on shitty tricks like these.
|
| What are YOUR weaknesses then? What can YOU not handle without
| the help of technology? Please share so somebody can make fun
| of you too :D
|
| OP: thanks for posting.
| lopis wrote:
| You're wrong.
|
| Just because your brain is able to keep track of your friends
| and actively remember to interact with them, doesn't mean
| everyone is like you. People who are not neurotypical can have
| very close friends and family and not realize that 3 months
| have passed since they last called home or checked in with a
| friend. It's so easy to forget that other people's brains don't
| work exactly like ours; remembering that is an extremely
| important habit to exercise.
| rendall wrote:
| With respect, I feel like this reaction is a bit luddite. OP is
| using technology to help maintain and build relationships. It's
| not technology that's dictating anything, it's technology as it
| should be used: to make our lives better.
|
| I'd be absolutely fine with someone I appreciated reaching out
| to me and asking how things are going, even knowing they are
| using a prompt, as long as the contact was sincere.
|
| I'm wondering what the difference here is compared to these: a
| close family member / friend who is really good at keeping in
| touch with people, and prompts you as well; a birthday
| calendar; a _rolodex_ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex];
| Facebook / Instagram as a primary way of keeping in touch with
| people
|
| For me, the difference is only in the specific technology being
| used, but the intent and effect is indistinguishable.
| theblazehen wrote:
| That's not always so easy. For many people, such as people with
| ADHD, the concept of "out of sight, out of mind" affects their
| life to a significant level, to the point where they really
| enjoy contact with their friends, however reaching out to them
| never comes to mine.
|
| Some people legitimately can't remember to contact friends
| without any external prompting.
| afandian wrote:
| 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!
| reyqn wrote:
| 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.
| Just live your life, you don't have to try and hack
| everything... If you really need a system like this, why not,
| but even I who suck at keeping in touch feel this is overkill
| and unnatural.
| terafo wrote:
| Not everyone is good at socializing. _Just live your life_
| is a terrible advice for someone who is struggling with
| people.
| reyqn wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This system is terrible
| advice for someone who isn't really struggling with
| people, to such a point that it's detrimental to his
| wellbeing.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>the illusion of a social life,
|
| Yep, that summed it up for me in 6 words.
|
| That would also apply to most social media as well.
| mrtb wrote:
| I think the alternative to having a social life "dictated by a
| machine" (a machine which, in this case, encodes the intentions
| of its programmer) is to have a social life dictated by chance
| and by other's intentions - coincidences on public transport,
| social media posts ranked by a black box, the noisy patterns of
| our recollection, etc... what is so 'authentic' about
| sacrificing one's attention to these forces, which may only
| align accidentally with our priorities?
|
| I've kept a spreadsheet for about 5 years of people I know from
| my hometown, from uni, past jobs, in other countries, family of
| friends, etc... ranked roughly by how frequently to contact
| them, and it has been so helpful and fun for me (and them!) to
| use it. This might not be helpful for everyone, depending on
| what you care about and the size of your network, but it seems
| more "sad" to me that people let chance and social media
| control their patterns of interaction.
| wegi wrote:
| Hard disagree here.
|
| My days are long and full. And as a somewhat introverted person
| it takes additional energy to remember to keep in touch with
| people. Even those that I like very, very much.
|
| So it helps to have a reminder and something that actively
| pushes one to do so. Not every person in the world is wired the
| way you are.
|
| Jakobs approach is basically a more automated calendar. Plus,
| he is actively making an effort to keep in touch with people he
| deems important enough to be in his life. Its not as if he is
| sending automated messages to them.
| vidarh wrote:
| Similar here. There are a number of people that regularly pop
| into my head and I'll wonder how they're doing or miss
| talking to them that I still rarely contact because it takes
| a lot of energy and I need to be in the right mindset for it
| even though I enjoy the contact when it happens. If I think
| about them at a time I don't feel up to being social (often),
| I end up pushing it aside.
| andersonmvd wrote:
| The problem is when you know someone contacted you because of
| their 'system'. I feel less compelled to reply. It feels more
| that the person is doing their chores and you are just helping
| them to get the task done. Somewhat similar because people only
| reminded of you because facebook displayed on their timeline that
| it was your birthday. No right or wrong here, but when it's not
| genuine it's not genuine and period.
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Another way to look at it: This hypothetical person created
| their 'system' because they valued their connections enough to
| establish a way to maintain them. And they specifically added
| _you_ to the finite list of people they don 't want to lose
| touch with. So it is genuine--it's just a reminder, we all need
| reminders once in a while.
|
| Now, if the person isn't actually your friend, but a
| professional contact (e.g., recruiter) who just hopes to
| extract value from you someday, then those guys can go jump in
| a lake.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| The dawn of "digitally augmented relationship management"?
|
| - Dave, I noticed you haven't spoken to X in a while. Do you want
| me to sent them a short generic message to keep the relationship
| warm?
|
| - Aaw, thanks HAL. I love how you are taking good care of me.
|
| On the other hand, we have finite and overburdened memories.
| Surely there is a way to get them triggered that doesn't feel
| mechanical and "fake".
| pishpash wrote:
| Pretty soon all you'll be building is relationship between two
| bots. Then we can cut to the chase and be totally
| transactional. So serendipitous!
| bendouglas wrote:
| I built a system like this, and loved it enough that I built an
| app to do what the author describes: http://parsnipapp.com/
|
| Totally free, with no plans to monetize it. Having an easy system
| like this adds enough value to me and my friends who use it to
| continue to develop and maintain it.
|
| I love the author's automation for sending an email digest, I
| think that's a great feature that I'll add to the roadmap. Up
| next for development I'd like to add reminders for specific days
| (eg., birthdays, trip reminders, w/e).
|
| If anyone gives the app a shot, I'd love to hear from you.
| Feedback is appreciated!
| warunsl wrote:
| Not a feedback on the app. But I clicked through the link on my
| mac (Monterey) and was pleasantly surprised I could install
| this iPhone app on my mac. Is this new? Can we install iPhone
| apps on mac now?
| samsolomon wrote:
| For those of you who are trying to leave social media--this is an
| excellent way to keep in touch.
|
| When you're on Twitter or Instagram, it's easy to see a picture
| or comment and message them about it. Or when you see someone's
| birthday on Facebook. When either you or your
| friends/family/acquaintances leave that social network, it's easy
| to lose track of one another.
|
| I built something similar to this in Notion last year. It's a
| great way to keep contact with individuals--wherever they are--
| and not just a social profile.
| OgAstorga wrote:
| I don't think this is "spammy" nor "unnatural". There are
| important persons in our life that are worth keeping contact with
| for the sake of keeping contact with.
|
| If you create this list and it's only filled with people that
| could be helpful to you in the future (agents?). Maybe it's time
| to recall that we the people are ends rather than means to
| themselves.
|
| Second, Mental memory is lossy. Sometimes you move for a while to
| another city. It's easy to get distracted and forget to keep in
| touch with the people you love.
| chrischen wrote:
| Would be a great if there was an app that helped you do social
| like this. Sort of like a Facebook that works for you instead of
| against you.
| yokoprime wrote:
| This is terrible. If this is in a professional setting, use a
| CRM. If you put your friends in a "CRM" with SLAs a and reminders
| to "touch base" ... you don't have friends.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Just use a spreadsheet?
|
| Does having a list of friends on a spreadsheet make you a data
| controller?
| sublimefire wrote:
| If this system is used as a gateway to schedule a meeting or ask
| for a favor then might be all right! Like, if you're honest and
| say "hey I did even setup a reminder to make sure we agree on our
| next meetup that we talked about earlier". And then remove it
| from the reminders and make sure to follow up as with a normal
| friend if they want to. A reminder has to have a specific reason,
| and "say hi" is not specific enough.
|
| Otherwise, nobody wants (downvoted posts at the bottom) to get a
| message from a person who did it because a CRON job sent a
| reminder to their email, this is how sales people work.
| Furthermore classification should not be that explicit, yes we
| have our favorite acquaintances, but not with labels in the
| lists. Labels have a weird side effect, what if you follow up and
| have a convo and them meet a person, do you go back to the list
| and elevate their status?
| theltrj wrote:
| effectively you've created your own personal Sales/Marketing DRIP
| campaign, neat, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_marketing
| lelandfe wrote:
| If I read a post on my friend's blog exposing that their
| occasional texts had genesis in an automation and not genuine
| interest I would try very hard to not talk to that person
|
| Unsubscribe, please
| admjs wrote:
| I'd say that the genesis is a genuine interest in keeping in
| touch, automation is managing the process. I get behind on
| messages with my closest friends/family, and then I have a
| large network of professional/semi-personal relationships to
| maintain.
|
| I empathise why the OP would do this.
| H8crilA wrote:
| I trust you don't use a calendar to keep track of birthdays,
| otherwise people will try very hard not to talk to you.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| Implying that forgetting a date and forgetting a person are
| equivalent.
| watwut wrote:
| The system is not solving the "I forgot this person exists"
| issue. It is solving the "nothing prompts me to contact
| this person without having reason to" issue.
| p_l wrote:
| Or "nothing overcomes issues that say do not contact,
| you're not worth their time"
| [deleted]
| thrav wrote:
| When you have ADHD, things often only come to mind via
| triggers, and many people in the tech community have ADHD.
| camillomiller wrote:
| p_l wrote:
| I have read the article top to bottom... and yes, it's
| relatable, comparable, it leaves me with envy that I
| despite numerous attempts I haven't managed to build a
| reliable system like that and turn it into a habit.
|
| In no way do I feel it makes any of the connection cheap.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Huh, fascinating difference between people. Personally, the
| fact that my friends use a calendar event to remember my
| birthday and some of them have an earlier event to remember to
| plan something for me makes me happy. They precommitted to this
| act of caring and built it into their workflow so it wouldn't
| be missed! I love it.
|
| People are so different in our attitudes to life. It reminds me
| of the Calendly snafu from earlier.
| PhantomBKB wrote:
| When I was in school, I'd get home and call at least 2-3 friends
| on a daily basis on the landline, just to chat or ask what all
| homeworks we were supposed to do for the next day. We lost touch
| after we graduated and went our separate ways. But what I miss
| the most from those times was how interconnected our lives were.
| We'd hang out together all the time in school, then come home and
| talk on the telephone. After exams, we'd meet up at someone's
| house for a sleepover, play video games and gossip about school
| all night long.
|
| I have tried implementing a similar lifestyle with my new friends
| as I grew older, but it just didn't work. I realized then, that
| the kind of bond we shared was a rarity and others had not had
| such an experience. I barely call anyone now. And more
| importantly, I feel uncomfortable calling people. Like I'm
| disturbing them. However, back in school days it was the
| telephoning that made us the great friends we were because we got
| to have 1 on 1 conversations with each other very often.
|
| In recent times, texting has destroyed the telephoning culture. I
| absolutely detest texting, but all of my peers are doing it. I
| wish times were a little simpler.
| jb1991 wrote:
| Oh good god. The things people do, like every aspect of life can
| be automated with code.
| TuLithu wrote:
| I know, right? This is kind of how I feel about org mode (in
| Emacs).
| ddubski wrote:
| One of my mom's friends has a great method for keeping in touch
| with people. He keeps one of those daily tear-off calendars
| (filled with cat/dad jokes) on his desk. Each day he looks at the
| joke and decides who it reminds him, then just tears that page
| off and mails it to the person, along with his business card. No
| further explanation or note involved. I guess he just needs a lot
| of stamps.
| Mikho wrote:
| It's not clear why would anybody try to force a communication
| when there is no common interest, project, or actually any reason
| to communicate. It always looks fake and inevitably ends with
| discomfort. It's worth staying in touch if there is a topic to
| discuss, or mutual interest. If the whole routine is just for
| your own mental comfort that you are a "good" socialite, it's
| worth thinking twice before contacting yet another person out of
| the blue.
|
| It's better to just go to a bar and meet new people instead of
| trying to return to the past.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Look at these assumptions that you just inserted:
|
| 1. No "common interest, project ..."
|
| 2. You just want to be a ""good" socialite"
|
| 3. "Forced": A lot of social interactions are "forced" in the
| sense that the conversation does not flow completely
| effortlessly so this applies generally
|
| As to (1): one can have common interests etc. even though one
| does not see each other regularly. As to (2): this is just a
| contentless insult towards people who like to socialize,
| similar to the "loner" insult which is aimed towards people who
| prefer to be more solitary, so this can be disregarded.
|
| Really dumbfounding to see so many people in this thread who
| think it's _unnatural_ to keep in touch with people by way of
| things like the telephone.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I would totally disagree. I can think of two dozen folks I
| would love to catch up with (and I'm sure they would agree) but
| between work projects, kids, family you keep losing track of
| time.
|
| The real proof of this is when I run into them on the commuter
| train, we sit together and have vibrant conversations. Or you
| run into them on the street, and next thing you know you've got
| an active SMS thread going...until the kids have some issue at
| school and now you're distracted.
| domenicd wrote:
| This is a very helpful post.
|
| Over the pandemic, I fell into the habit of basically only
| socializing with my partner. When you have a comfortable
| relationship with such high availability it's too easy to neglect
| friendships.
|
| As things have opened back up, so far I've been basically relying
| on extrovert friends to do outreach. This means that a lot of my
| introvert friends, who are (like me) bad at reaching out, I
| haven't seen in months. A system like this would probably give me
| the nudge I need to take the initiative myself.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Quite introverted myself, only that extroverted friends (?) do
| not reach out or initiate, so it all comes down to what I do.
| If I don't contact/initiate, then nothing happens, except with
| the friends I often talk with online anyway.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Let me just point that the messages must be genuine and
| thoughtful. It is written in the article, but it seems that some
| people failed to notice it and accuse the author of
| objectivization and hypocrisy.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| gostsamo wrote:
| Original meaning of genuine is that is original and truthful
| and not "looks original and truthful".
|
| Also, you just make assumptions about the person and his
| motivations which speaks more about you than about him.
|
| From the article: > Most importantly, I always send the kind
| of messages I'd like to receive. They're short, genuine, and
| (ideally) helpful. I never try to sell anything and there's
| no agenda other than to keep in touch.
| [deleted]
| inopinatus wrote:
| You're gatekeeping the authenticity of someone else's
| relationships.
|
| This tells us more about you, than it does about them.
| smilespray wrote:
| They would be genuine and thoughtful if the system didn't rely
| on previously prepared notes such as "He publishes incredible
| posts on his blog".
|
| This system is more akin to how a politician or salesperson
| manages personal interaction for maximum effect -- there's a
| lof of method but little sincerity involved.
|
| I'm not saying the system isn't useful to some degree, but this
| is a bit much for me.
| gostsamo wrote:
| The prepared notes are for people of interest and not someone
| considered a contact. The goal is not to extract something,
| but to maintain and expand.
|
| Again, from the article:
|
| > Most importantly, I always send the kind of messages I'd
| like to receive. They're short, genuine, and (ideally)
| helpful. I never try to sell anything and there's no agenda
| other than to keep in touch.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| You can also choose not to write. If the reminder email names
| someone you don't feel like keeping in touch with anymore, you
| can just delete the email and go on with your day.
|
| It's a system of personal reminders, not a Jira backlog to burn
| down.
| skydhash wrote:
| I think many people miss this point. I'm good at
| conversation, but horrible at keeping in touch because I
| don't really perceive time in relationship. Maybe I need to
| develop a habit of going through my contact list, but that is
| very fragmented due to various platform - call, WhatsApp,
| Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. So setting a common contact
| book, then adding reminders can be a nice way to maintain
| relationship.
| ferran_r wrote:
| Actually this is sad
| greyman wrote:
| As I understand this, it shouldn't be primarily for close
| friends, but for other people. For example, some journalist
| wrote a very interesting article, so I sent him an email, he
| answered, maybe we exchanged one more email, and that was it.
| Now with this system I would get a reminder 6 months later to
| reach him again. Why not? It can develop into online friendship
| or something good can happen out of it. If I don't do it, just
| nothing happens with that person anymore. And if I tell myself
| that I don't need to contact this journalist anymore, then ok,
| I will not put him into the system. Still, I would be curious
| to learn how many people he has in his system.
| nagarjun wrote:
| I'm curious to hear your results from using this system. How long
| have you been running it for and what did you get out of it? I
| understand that the point of doing this is to not expect anything
| in return but, that's a little misleading because it's hard to
| have honest conversations in regular frequencies with people you
| barely know (B, C, D list). What do you do when people don't
| respond? Do you take them off the list?
| Paul_S wrote:
| The next logical step is to have AI (GPT-3?) read the social
| posts of the contact and produce an email based on that and the
| last email. I hope the poor people on the other end of the
| author's networking scheme also have AI to read this and reply.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| That's a logical leap. No part of the interaction is automated.
| toxik wrote:
| People definitely do this on matchmaking sites!
| keithalewis wrote:
| Just ask Eric Schmidt. Oh, wait. Whacky parsed as ad making
| sites. Nevermind. Didn't that guy write something about AI
| with another guy named Henry? Is AI trying to get us mad or
| get us laid? Somebody needs to write a program to figure that
| out and turn it into DoggyDuJourCoin. I heard you can make
| easy money doing that. It's all good. Who wants to bother
| with thinking when computers can do that for us now. I'm sure
| nobody is trying to take advantage of people who don't do
| that. #PTBarnum
| gardaani wrote:
| Silicon Valley had an episode about a similar idea and it
| didn't end well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEzvFiR_Dts
| mb_72 wrote:
| Hmmm, I would never use such a system as for one thing - if
| people aren't contacting me, why should I care about contacting
| them? I have several 'best friends', maybe twice that 'friends',
| and then a bunch more I interact with sometimes, and I feel this
| is relatively normal. Also, I don't care actually if it's not
| normal, and don't feel I'm missing out on anything. That said,
| I'm quite the introvert and generally value time by myself over
| time with others.
|
| Still, if this is what works for the author, and they feel they
| need to 'keep in touch', and that describing such a system helps
| other people, then good for them. Someone else using this system
| doesn't hurt me in any way, in fact if I was contacted by someone
| AND found out about the system behind it, my curiosity about how
| it worked might lead to a new deeper friendship.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > if people aren't contacting me, why should I care about
| contacting them?
|
| If they utilize the same philosophy then you will never contact
| each other.
|
| Solve the problem by only contacting 50% of them.
| pjerem wrote:
| > if people aren't contacting me, why should I care about
| contacting them?
|
| That's my current main interrogation in life and honestly, I
| have not found the answer.
|
| I feel alone, but I have a fair number of "old friends" I
| barely contact anymore. I want to keep in touch but don't know
| what to say. And they don't spontaneously contact me, neither
| do I. It's a chicken and egg problem. Maybe people don't care
| about me. But they could feel the same about me.
|
| Am I strange or is everyone just bad at keeping in touch ?
|
| The few times I did spontaneously contact old friends, it was
| pretty cool. We had some drink and updates, and enjoyed it. So
| I think it's just we are all bad. But it's exhausting.
| trowawee wrote:
| I sorta feel like you answered the question in this comment,
| despite saying that you don't have the answer. The answer is
| because you want to stay in touch, because humans (mostly)
| crave contact with other humans. Loneliness is endemic in a
| lot of places right now. Many people feel alone, and many
| people feel like they are "bad at staying in touch", and
| maybe a tiny handful of people are naturally good at it
| (altho in my limited experience, the ones who are good at it
| are usually using some system, even if it's not quite this
| technical).
|
| Personally, I use Monica and regularly make lists of people
| that I want to stay in touch with, and then periodically go
| through those lists and reach out to them. It doesn't have to
| be a huge personal missive, just a text or an email that says
| something like "Hey! I was just thinking of you. How are
| you/you and the family doing?" If something more deliberate
| triggered the desire, I include that. And it frequently
| triggers conversations that, like you experienced, were a lot
| of fun, and end up actually feeling energizing, rather than
| draining.
| sweetheart wrote:
| YMMV, but when I find myself feeling this way I try to force
| myself to do what is incredibly uncomfortable, but ultimately
| probably best for me: I tell them that I miss them and want
| to schedule some time together. That could mean a weekend to
| see them, or scheduling a video chat to just catch up, or
| just a short call while you go on a walk.
|
| It can seem awkward or stilted, but eh, I'll take that
| feeling over the loneliness any day of the week.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| This.
|
| I tend to move countries every few years, which means I leave
| many of my friends behind. For a while, social media was a
| good way to keep in touch, but nowadays nobody I know
| regularly logs in to social media any more (me included), so
| that route is gone.
|
| About a year ago I decided to start doing a 3-6 month email
| blast, like those family holiday letters people used to send
| in the snail mail days. About half my friends I wasn't able
| to find their email addresses, and when I contacted them on
| social media they didn't reply. The other half received the
| email blast, but only two or three have ever responded.
|
| You'd think this means none of my friends are "real friends".
| But I have since then run into a few of those people in
| person and it was like nothing changed, our friendship
| continued how it was years ago for an afternoon or an
| evening. So I don't think it's that other people don't want
| to maintain the friendship, it's more that we have kinda lost
| the knowledge of how to keep in touch. And I'm not sure how
| to fix it.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| That's kind of how I am with my college friends. At least
| we (pandemic-willing) have a reason to all be in the same
| city for the same weekend once a year. Some go for the
| trade show itself, everyone else goes because they know
| that's when everyone will be in town.
| p_l wrote:
| I often have a mismatch between communication styles leading to
| problems with such reciprocal expectation about contact like
| you describe - especially since I try to be conscientous about
| other people's time. In fact, the more I care, the harder it is
| to possibly interrupt someone who might be in middle of
| something important to them.
|
| I see this system as a way of preventing backsliding into rarer
| and rarer interactions when they aren't pushed by common
| activities.
| tbirdz wrote:
| 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.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I have a semifinished website that does something similar. It
| lets you schedule reminders to reach out to people you care about
| at set intervals. The difference is that it texts you the
| reminder and will add in suggestions of what to reach out to them
| about.
|
| I find that having something to say is just as hard as
| remembering to reach out.
| admjs wrote:
| I have a similar system, not for friends, but for acquaintances,
| business connections etc. I have a google sheet and a google
| script, the script runs once per day and checks the last time I
| emailed them or they emailed me. If it's too long ago it adds a
| reminder to my calendar for that day. It's simple and means I
| don't have to remember to use the system.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| ant6n wrote:
| What's the point of networking. I used to not care for
| decades, now I wish I'd spent more time and effort on it.
| cpach wrote:
| Networking can be very valuable. And some people definitely
| suffer because they have done too little of it and
| therefore missed out on valuable opportunities.
|
| With that said, I haven't used any system for keeping in
| touch with people.
| viach wrote:
| If these other people have similar systems you could even
| authomate it via shared API so that they are just doing ping-pong
| of howareyou-imfine. Win-win!
| barbazoo wrote:
| This is related to an idea I had for a "todo" app that I haven't
| found anywhere yet. Every task can implement some kind of
| flexible occurrence. It's for tasks that should be done but the
| exact date isn't very important and the recurrence interval
| starts again not the last time the task became "due" but the last
| time it was done.
|
| It fits many kinds of tasks, watering plants, checking a furnace
| filter, ... but also staying in touch with people.
|
| Does anyone know of a service or app like that?
| melindajb wrote:
| Clickup does this very well-lets you decide if you want to
| create a new instance no matter what, or whether you want to
| create a relative recurrence when the task is complete.
|
| So in the case of furnace filters: create quarterly, then push
| next one out x days once marked complete.
|
| In the case of rent, it's always due the 1st of the month
| regardless of whether I pay on the 2nd or the 31st.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Thank you, I'll check it out.
| fpopa wrote:
| I resonate so much with this, it felt very easy to fall out of
| touch with people that I had closer some time ago.
|
| I've actually started building a more niche version of
| cal.com|calendly that focuses exactly on this but with a twist
| for coffee :) the main differentiator being setting a "time
| limit" that reminds you to meet X. Very similar to this A,B,C or
| D system.
|
| It feels robotic, but if it helps someone that's enough for me.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised by the negative reactions here. I don't think
| the post is saying "I use a tool to remind me to talk to my
| spouse/close/friends/family" so much as "having weak social
| connections is more useful for both sides than not having them at
| all and I have a tool to help me do the work of maintaining
| them". Two things which I think are acceptable and similar are:
|
| 1. Contacts who mostly just exchange Christmas cards (but what a
| bad way of staying in touch! One year my dad decided he was sick
| of Christmas cards and he would just call his acquaintances and
| talk to them instead, which seemed a better way to do things)
|
| 2. Maintaining business relationships. E.g. maybe you meet
| someone from some other company at a conference and then email a
| bit and decide there isn't some business you currently want to do
| with them (eg their product is unsuitable) but you may still want
| to keep in touch in case they offer something new or may remember
| you and mention your services to someone else or vice versa. I
| don't think people would be so upset to hear that someone they
| worked with had some reminder system to help maintain such
| relationships.
| brthsim wrote:
| dang wrote:
| 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._"
| kator wrote:
| 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 guilt of getting out of touch makes it hard to push through
| that resistance. I just push through it.
| mads wrote:
| If I got a message like that, I would wonder which kind of
| sausage app or Like-Facebook-for-X development project, you
| wanted to peddle on me this time.
| endisneigh wrote:
| that would say much more about your friends than the message,
| though.
| dotancohen wrote:
| There's a message in there about if you want to know who a
| person is, look at his friends.
| weka wrote:
| Yeah this works great until you realize you're the one _always_
| initiating and they say "Wow thanks for getting in touch" and
| you don't talk to them for another 3 years.
| olivertaylor wrote:
| Yeah, this happens to me a lot. But I've accepted that's the
| price to be paid for keeping in touch with certain people. Of
| course, there are plenty of times when I decide it's not
| worth it to be the only one who reaches out.
| atrus wrote:
| 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?
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| 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!
| manmal wrote:
| There's always the possibility to ignore such people, no
| need to help or respond if you feel used.
| binkHN wrote:
| I do something similar, and actually wrote an app to help
| recently. It goes one step further by allowing you to specify
| different messages that it can use at random. The landing page
| for the app is at http://communiqai.com.
| YPCrumble wrote:
| The flopping in animations on this are really annoying in my
| opinion. It makes me think the product will be equally
| annoying to my friends so I didn't sign up even though the
| concept interests me.
| binkHN wrote:
| I will work on that! Thank you for the feedback!
| vondro wrote:
| Thanks for this.
|
| I started to write too long comment about how I feel scheduling
| my life would not work for me, but that doesn't add anything to
| the discussion.
|
| I've just texted an old friend.
|
| And I think I'll set up some yearly reminder to reach my few
| friends that don't respond anymore, but that I care about
| anyway.
| kirso wrote:
| 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 hard feelings if we don't speak for
| another year.
|
| Serendipity and randomness wins.
| brnt wrote:
| 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.
| nefitty wrote:
| One of the most powerful life hacks I've discovered is
| management of rejection sensitivity/expectation of
| rejection. CBT can help. Also, surprisingly, Tylenol...
|
| https://www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-tylenol-
| ingred...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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.
| thelettere wrote:
| 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.sagep
| ub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096372141142945...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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.
| hillacious wrote:
| Is it because Tylenol isn't an NSAID?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Did you see Tylenol mentioned either?
| nefitty wrote:
| Oops, sorry. I had no idea. I'll keep that in mind.
| [deleted]
| kirso wrote:
| 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 easily feel the vibe and if you would be a person I
| knew or met at some point I would be: "Wow so great to hear
| from you!"
|
| I had this case last year when I reached out to an
| acquaintance, whom I helped back in the days and suggested
| a "catch-up over a zoom". To which he said he can't
| allocate time right now as he is busy. Had the same
| happened on Twitter. It felt a bit painful at first but
| then people are just living a busy life these days. Its a
| weird world that nobody experienced before...
|
| So don't worry about these feelings, just do it anyways and
| worst case scenario you have a great catch-up and happy
| memories.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > 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.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > Serendipity and randomness wins.
|
| Randomness you said?
|
| ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1
| nefitty wrote:
| I think both approaches work. Like, most people survive with
| a to-do loop just in their brains, stochastically
| prioritizing and picking tasks to do as circumstances change.
| The difficulty comes in when a person either doesn't have the
| capacity for multiple threads in their mind (ie mental
| disorder, creative loop dominance, overwhelm, unreliable
| memory, etc) or when a person wants to focus their mind
| completely on some personal endeavor.
|
| It's likely that most traditionally successful people have
| some sort of task system in their life. Who's to say that the
| most socially "successful" people don't have similar systems
| as well? It reminds me of the show Veep, where the main
| character's entourage whispers in her ear the name and info
| about a person she's about to shake hands with. The whole
| persona of a politician is based on making and juggling and
| keeping connections open. Biden is still in regular contact
| with people from decades ago from the beginning of his
| career, for example.
|
| I told a friend once that I was using the Habitica game to
| help me stay productive. He was incredulous, "You really need
| a piece of software to tell you what to do?!" He manages and
| co-owns several ice cream stores, so I know the stochastic
| method is feasible in more complex lifestyles. That's just
| not the case for my brain.
|
| I admit that I am hesitant to build a social system because
| of the expectation of perception of cynicism or even
| sociopathy. I have my friend's birthdays on my calendar. Why
| shouldn't I also have a little blurb about what they like,
| what they're up to and a log of our contact? I think I would
| be floored and honored if I found out a friend lovingly kept
| little journal entries about me, I mean, after the intial
| weirded-outness I guess.
| bnralt wrote:
| 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 to send several long
| hand written letters to several of these friends every year,
| for 30, 40, 50 years. But I don't think I've encountered
| anyone in younger generations who would do that.
|
| 15-20 years ago, I had a number of e-mail acquaintances who
| I'd send long e-mail to every few months, and they'd send
| another long e-mail in return. This went on for years, but
| with the increase in popularity of social media, these
| exchanges dwindled into nothingness.
|
| Likewise, I remember when almost everyone I knew was on AIM.
| But that became old fashioned, for some reason. Not for any
| particular reason; people still can and do communicate with
| text messages, and it was no extra effort to keep an AIM
| client running in the background. But when something new
| comes along, there's usually an exodus from the old.
|
| Up until recently it seemed that Facebook was the platform to
| communicate, and it had a very specific, shallow form of
| communication sent to everyone. Though now even that seems to
| be dying down.
|
| Mst people are driven by social trends at large. If you sent
| a handwritten letter to an acquaintance at one point in time,
| you'd get one in return. Likewise with a friendly e-mail
| talking about your life. Nothing we have now is really a
| replacement for e-mail, but it's more trendy, so the old form
| of communication gets completely neglected.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| 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.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| Hm interesting. I've actually gotten these types of messages
| before, and now they seem strange. My replies were enthusiastic
| but did not lead to anymore than a shallow interaction, so I
| felt it was a waste of my time. Perhaps my cynical view, but I
| don't want to be used for someone else's need to feel like
| they're connecting with someone when they're not interested in
| more than a hello and hope you're well. Those are small talk
| and are taxing on me :-(
| throwawayboise wrote:
| They're text messages. They are the very epitome of shallow
| interaction. I agree with your sentiment completely.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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.
| kixiQu wrote:
| 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.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| 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.
| binkHN wrote:
| I concur with this. In my experience, more often than not,
| something unexpected comes up in the reply. This leads to
| significantly greater interaction and, sometimes, a follow
| up phone call to further the connection.
| 300bps wrote:
| _Those are small talk and are taxing on me :-(_
|
| Years ago I read the book, "How to Practice" by the Dalai
| Lama. Like any book, there were a few parts that stuck with
| me. Paraphrasing, one of them was:
|
| "If you are in the right frame of mind, your worst enemy
| cannot hurt you. If you are in the wrong frame of mind, your
| best friend visiting can seem like a horrific chore."
| smiley0r wrote:
| So true
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > your best friend visiting can seem like a horrific chore
|
| 100% for me. Holidays, with non-immediate family coming
| over, are a nightmare. I would be happy to meet at a
| restaurant or bar. Prepping the house and a menu of meals,
| snacks, drinks, etc. is not somthing I ever enjoy. It's
| stress from beginning to end. I've been known to feign
| illness to avoid these visits.
| daveed wrote:
| I do the same thing. I keep a text file with friends' names and
| from time to time check it too.
| mguerville wrote:
| That's been my approach too (with a spreadsheet though) and
| at first I just jotted down names but once i reach out to
| someone I update the spreadsheet with a durable contact info
| (not a work email)
|
| I think phone numbers and social profiles are probably the
| most future proof, as I see a pattern of people moving away
| from personal email for anything other than spam and shopping
| related receipts
| Cd00d wrote:
| I started doing this with covid lockdowns, and it's been
| wonderful. I've had days-long text chains with people that
| naturally drop off again for a few months, but got us both
| caught up. I've had meaningful connections with past colleagues
| that made us both realize how much friendship was formed at
| work. I've even had it pivot to zoom and a couple of times turn
| into not just a friendly catch up but learning about
| opportunities at someone's new company (I'm actively job
| searching too).
|
| At the end of the day, just catching up with people that I used
| to see and talk to on a daily/weekly cadence has been a
| significant emotional boon, and I don't see any downsides. Some
| of the reaching out didn't go anywhere, and that's fine - most
| were very worth my time.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| If I ever received a message like that I would be completely
| weirded out, is this a thing people actually _do_?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yup. I started doing it after some friends disappeared out of
| my life not due to any reason, just.. social entropy. So I
| started reaching out.
|
| Sometimes conversations don't go anywhere, just the "How are
| you?" "Fine" kind of stuff. Never had a negative experience.
| Have had a fair amount of positive ones - news about friends
| having kids, finding partners, new jobs, etc. A few people
| who had left my life are now back in my orbit.
|
| At the cost of a few minutes, it's potentially high gain.
| d0m3 wrote:
| It sounds like good advice. Heck I don't wanna automate my
| life, especially not up that point. Imagine if the people the
| author contacted knew why, I wouldn't be too happy about it.
| Slightly related, I try to remember my closest friends
| birthdays, means more to me if I can remember it rather than a
| generic reminder...
| bgroat wrote:
| 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"
| a-dub wrote:
| 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.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| 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
| ...
| 58x14 wrote:
| Hey, me too! I've been building something like this for
| awhile, but it's a side project, and thus regularly de-
| prioritized beneath work projects.
|
| Also, really a lot of effort to maintain, as each platform
| tends to frequently push breaking changes :(
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Good on you!
|
| I can imagine -- a solid feed with reply capabilities
| sounds like a maintenance nightmare. But a smaller
| feature set could cover the queuing need described here
| -- something that just extracts a simple .csv file
| listing contacts and when they were last contacted.
| manmal wrote:
| Beeper is essentially that. I've been using it for a few
| months and it's surprisingly usable already.
| bgroat wrote:
| Sounds like the Rich Man's CRM to me
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| One can only dream, but some kind of Adium/Trillian for
| social media would be amazing.
| [deleted]
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Perhaps the people that should be at the absolute top of our list
| to contact are the ones that have bothered contacting us over the
| years?
|
| Other than that I don't have much to add -- I'm absolutely
| terrible at this and my life suffers as a result. If probably
| enjoy building a tool like this but the problem is I don't enjoy
| reaching out to people. Although I would enjoy the consequences
| of having reached out.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| > I typically spend a few minutes researching what they've been
| up to recently.
|
| So this process isn't for friends? I find this behavior
| personally strange. I'd rather get the information on what
| they've been up to from them directly, and the way I do that is
| to video call them on a weekend to catch up.
|
| It really is impersonal in my opinion to learn about a friend via
| broadcast messages posted to social media.
|
| As for the technique in the post, I do agree. Some regularity is
| needed. Every few weeks I call people via video and talk. Others
| I share photos about what I've done via Signal and ask how
| they're doing.
| trowawee wrote:
| I mean, I have a lot of friends who I don't live near who will
| periodically post pictures on Instagram or updates about their
| lives on FB. Scanning their feed for a few minutes if they're
| active on social media is a good way to make sure you're at
| least a little up-to-date on what's going on in their life, and
| will frequently give you a good hook for a conversation (i.e.
| how is little So-and-So?, or I saw your trip pictures, how was
| Wherever?). Also can help you avoid a faux pas. It's never fun
| to ask someone who just got divorced how their spouse is doing.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| > It's never fun to ask someone who just got divorced how
| their spouse is doing.
|
| Right, same for a lost pregnancy, but that's not a subject to
| post to social media. Personally I would not advertise a
| divorce there either.
|
| It's only natural to expect someone to ask about such things
| because they're not up to date, and I find that okay. The
| fact they're asking even if I hadn't told them is expected
| and makes me feel better they even asked.
|
| I was in such a situation where I had to think about
| expecting "how is xyz" questions. Friends are genuinely
| asking. I don't fault them not knowing what I didn't tell
| them.
|
| Edit:
|
| Remember before social media? No similar method other than
| perhaps a website or email (90s) or simple telephone calls.
| trowawee wrote:
| Or gossip! Gossip gets a bad rap, and it can certainly be
| toxic, but it was the only semi-reliable way to get info
| about some of this stuff back in the day. I know everyone
| moans about social media and the mediated self and whatnot,
| but I kinda like that you can tell people what's going on
| in your life in a broadcast form and they can follow you
| and it doesn't always have to be high-touch.
| lars512 wrote:
| Many people have mentioned Monica, which is what I use for this.
|
| I live overseas from loved ones and old friends, meaning there
| are few natural cues to encourage communication. Without very
| regular chats my memory doesn't let me be as in context with the
| major things happening in their lives as I need to be to have
| meaningful conversations with them. Monica helps with both of
| these things.
|
| Getting reminders only really helps if the interactions
| themselves are also rewarding when you do them. If, say, calling
| an elderly family member feels more like a chore, it's easy to
| end up skipping the reminders more than you'd like.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Chiming to say that I also use a self-hosted instance of
| Monica.
|
| I hop between a lot of projects and hobbies so I tend to be a
| bit scatterbrained. Having a central store of my contacts, past
| events, their likes/dislikes is extremely useful for me.
| iamkroot wrote:
| Do you have a link to this? Every search query I try produces
| results for the character Monica from Friends. Seems like
| exceptionally poor SEO, heh.
| trowawee wrote:
| https://www.monicahq.com/
| iamkroot wrote:
| Grazie!
| pdr94 wrote:
| This is very well constructed but this is like a full time job in
| itself!
|
| I also worry that such a systematic method won't result in
| meaningful connections and could actually result in annoying your
| contacts or wasting their time..?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Birthdays occur slavishly on the same date every year. Is going
| to the same person's birthdays too systematic?
| rnkn wrote:
| Something that really freaks me out about the world is how much
| power tech people have and that their sociopathic behaviour, like
| treating all your personal relationships as transactional data,
| is considered a "simple system".
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| It's not a tech thing and is not sociopathic. Sells have been
| keeping cards on their customers for centuries and a whole
| category of software exists for that, CRMs. I personally can't
| remember the names and ages of all the children of all the
| people I interact with. I still take the time to take notes
| about it when I can and review them before seeing someone. I
| still think it's better than not caring at all.
|
| Reading the comments on this discussion it seems that a
| significant part of HN is suddenly discovering that fostering
| relationships and keeping a network alive actually requires
| work.
| smilespray wrote:
| It does require effort.
|
| However, I can frequently tell when somebody uses CRM-like
| software or methods in our interactions -- and it usually
| isn't a bonus point in my book. It tends to make me a little
| bit wary of that person.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| And sales have been considered the most sleazy people for the
| same centuries.
| lmm wrote:
| > Sells have been keeping cards on their customers for
| centuries
|
| And they've been seen as greasy, superficial, fakers for just
| as long.
| p_l wrote:
| Because unlike someone trying to keep in touch, you always
| knew they were just angling to sell something to you.
|
| Not because they kept a rolodex or used manual or
| computerised CRMs.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Sometimes a blogpost can seem a lot like marketing of a product
| with a story spun around it.
| stevecat wrote:
| I think the people I'd put in "Group D" would be the ones that
| respond immediately and expect an ongoing conversation. I can't
| imagine reaching out once a year to confirm we're both still
| alive!
| TuLithu wrote:
| It never ceases to amaze me how computer programmers can take the
| simplest things and make them mind-numbingly complex. Oy ve (and
| yes, I'm a programmer)! But if it makes him happy, more power to
| him.
| p_l wrote:
| Some things are simple to some people - and cripplingly hard to
| others :/
| rlewkov wrote:
| I keep a spreadsheet with name in first col and one col for every
| month and in cells I put day of month for birthday. I also use
| this as my Christmas card list and my keep in touch list
| dbodin11 wrote:
| TLDR
| https://www.kontxt.io/document/d/k7k_mY0nqhD_XHjiG-664KlF0FG...
| xlii wrote:
| I can see how it's polarizing especially since it feels like CRM
| for some.
|
| I'm, however, going to try this approach myself. Reason for that
| is that I'm all-or-nothing kind of person. I can nag you daily
| and overshare but then if our roads split (different job,
| environment etc.) I forget to reach out - simply because what's
| off my eyes is off my mind.
|
| It's not like I don't care for people, sometimes I find myself
| thinking about some colleagues couple months later. I don't reach
| out though cause it would be weird and it feels like cold e-mail.
| Done this few time and people would drop some bomb (like, oh
| yeah, our life changed 180, why didn't you call?) which would -
| instead of keeping relation, chill it even further, as we both
| feel weird about not caring.
|
| That reminds me that my grandma didn't get a call from me for
| past month or so (sigh).
| zerop wrote:
| I think touching base with people should be more spontaneous,
| real and relevant.
| kaioelfke wrote:
| Spreadsheets can work quite well for this. I made an iOS app as
| side project inspired by this post from Derek Sivers.
|
| https://amicu.app
| sivers wrote:
| Kai Oelfke! So glad you posted this here.
|
| https://amicu.app/ is a great example of this idea in action.
| alexb_ wrote:
| It's completely and utterly superficial. You just cannot stay in
| touch with hundreds of people - it's not possible, unless you are
| doing so superficially and treating "friends" as "things I need
| to check up on so I don't lose a node to a network of people that
| might be helpful to me".
|
| Completely maxed out, humans can only have about 150 friends[1].
| Trying to have more is just not being genuine. And think about
| the other side of this - what if you learned someone you thought
| actually cared about you, or that you actually considered a
| friend, was using a fucking automated system to "stay in touch".
| It's sociopath behavior.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
| kzisme wrote:
| Thanks for that link! I was trying to remember what the
| number/theory was called.
| mlatu wrote:
| > It's sociopath behavior.
|
| You say that out of the privilege of neurotypicallity.
|
| "Sociopaths" (as you seem to call people who use this or
| similar approaches for keeping in touch) also need to live
| their lives.
|
| Alternatively, is it your opinion they should be all locked up
| and put away with?
| throwit1q2e3r wrote:
| I would be happy that they valued me enough to add to their
| automation, and I would probably set up some automation to
| remind me to talk to them, and we would be automation buddies.
| Sounds a lot more fun than the likely alternative, that we
| never talk to each other again.
| andreyk wrote:
| 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.
| svachalek wrote:
| That article's old app link doesn't work so fyi:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/garden-stay-in-touch/id1230466...
| [deleted]
| brianmartinek wrote:
| +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.
| verytrivial wrote:
| Jakob is clearly the bottleneck here. Surely GPT3 or something
| could write these mundane "messages" for him? So inefficient.
| With a bit of luck and some elbow grease he could sell this as a
| service. To his friends. Then they'd never have to think about
| each other ever again.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| I've found it very helpful to take a bit more "forced" approach
| in maintaining relationships, especially as I am very poor at
| remembering names and biographical details.
|
| I just have a notion doc called "people." At first people have
| just a name and a physical description, along with where I met
| them. That just helps me remember names.
|
| But with my partner, different subsections have emerged, with
| gift ideas, movies to watch, fun things we could do.
|
| The approach outlined in this doc seems to focus on scaling the
| number of people you can keep in touch with. I struggle to see
| how this is different than traditional social media - eg the
| impersonal happy birthdays we've all come to ignore in Facebook.
| surfsvammel wrote:
| I have a very similar system. I use Trello. I have one column
| called 1M, one called 3M, one called 6M (representing how often I
| want to reach out to them). Each card is one person and the cards
| have a field on them that is called: Last Contact. Every week, or
| so, I have a look at the Trello board. I look at the top cards in
| each column and if it's time to reach out, I do so, update the
| Last Contact field, and move that card to the bottom of that
| column.
|
| Sometimes I add notes to the cards.
|
| That's it!
|
| Edit; The reason I don't have one big list, is that I've gotten a
| sense of how long each list can be for it to be manageable.
| tomdekan wrote:
| A great system!
| 3qz wrote:
| I would immediately block someone if I found out they were doing
| this to me. Disgusting behaviour.
| rattray wrote:
| Has anyone used the Google Contacts / Airtable integration?
| https://www.airtable.com/integrations/googlecontacts
| justinlloyd wrote:
| 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.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| My first reaction to this was it feels a little bit icky.
| However, on reflection, there are a number of people who I'd
| consider my closest friends who, partially due to the pandemic,
| I've not seen in a few years and we haven't ever been in the
| habit of talking regularly. I think having a systematic way of
| remembering to reach out to some of these people would definitely
| have been a net positive.
| giords wrote:
| "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.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Is scheduling social events through a personal calendar also
| sad and grey?
| terafo wrote:
| But if you have those skills, it's pretty simple. And most
| people here do have them.
| tillcarlos wrote:
| I started a year ago to shoot random videos throughout my week
| and then edit them on sunday (takes 1h with luma fusion). I
| limited each video to 3 minutes and added voice over.
|
| Then I sent the videos out via whatsapp and to 100 friends in a
| telegram channel.
|
| The effects of this were really great. People said it's now part
| of their Sunday. And they get to know me quite well, without
| scheduling calls or such.
| vm wrote:
| This is what makes Stories so powerful on Instagram, WhatsApp,
| FB, etc
| bncy wrote:
| It sounds good for business contacts or people that you might
| want to interact with for specific reason, but for anyone else?
|
| Why would one force their interaction with people if it's not
| genuine.
| [deleted]
| notreallyserio wrote:
| 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
| calendar feels odd. It makes me think of those emails you get
| "from" somebody after signing up for a service, and after a few
| you notice their time stamps all end in 00:00.
| EricE wrote:
| I think this is for higher level contact - not personal
| friendships. Networking for professional development - more
| along those lines.
|
| Something I need to get back into. Interacting, at least
| casually, on a routine basis with a wide amount of people has
| lead to every job I have ever held - they came to me based on
| my reputation or past interactions. It's definitely the best
| way to get a new (and better) job rather than blindly fishing
| for them.
|
| That's the real power of systems like this. Not to develop
| personal friendships, but to remain relevant in the eyes of a
| large number of people so that if they have a future
| opportunity you will be top of mind for how they can get it
| addressed.
|
| I think it's why he stresses making the contacts personal and
| with meaning/value specific to that person. These aren't
| soulless automated computer generated emails, but a system to
| prompt him to write relevant and sincere contact messages.
|
| Is it a lot of work? Sure. But building up a network of people
| who see you as contributing value is priceless.
| brudgers wrote:
| I understand the feeling.
|
| What I've learned in the last five years is contacting people
| has more upside than not contacting them.
|
| The worst thing that can happen after contact is a return to
| disconnection and the other person maintaining the same
| opinion.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Valid points, but this post is about organizing communication
| for professional development. The author mentions referrals and
| interesting code. Consider a professor and past grad students.
| dorkwood wrote:
| > 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
| considered reaching out to certain people to apologize, but I
| stopped when I realized I was mostly just looking for
| absolution rather than actually trying to make them feel
| better. To me, the kindest thing I can do is stay out of their
| lives.
| kiutroap wrote:
| I do the same, but it often makes me worried about what kind
| of person I am. I don't really have too much to apologize
| about - at least that I know of. But for some reason, I tend
| to grow apart from people who know my past or who simply know
| too much about me. Not every single one of them, but apart
| from very few people, this is the case. I think it's safe to
| say I have trust issues, but I never understood why, as I
| haven't suffered any trauma and don't really have a reason to
| be this way.
|
| I consider this to be a bad trait, because finding new
| friends isn't easy and I'm trying to get rid of this habit.
| dri_ft wrote:
| If you don't like people knowing too much about you,
| consider reading up on schizoid personality disorder. I'm
| not saying that you have it, but that particular foible is
| certainly reminiscent of it.
| formeruser wrote:
| 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.
| cyborgx7 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Perfect summary. The people I'm still in contact with are those
| that grew into better people together with me.
| ljm wrote:
| I like to think I chose depth over breadth. I can count my
| real friends on one hand and I feel like we have deep and
| meaningful friendships. They're people who I've been through
| some shit with, or people who I'd be prepared to go through
| some shit with if it came to it.
|
| Everyone else is someone who can come and go. How long are
| they around for? Who knows, it's just a temporary crossing of
| paths that feels nice while it lasts. I couldn't maintain a
| connect with hundreds of people unless fate crossed our paths
| again.
|
| But, you know, even those deep connections might be
| temporary, just on a longer timeframe. If one connection
| faded then perhaps there'd be room for a new one.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| I'm like you -- but for people who I was good friends with
| years ago and lost touch with, I usually find that we
| immediately hit it off great if we connect somewhere in
| person. For this reason I'm optimmistic about the
| possibility of maintaining a wider net.
| rdiddly wrote:
| ha ha - "my shittiness"
|
| Well I definitely heard that. I have a thing the voices in my
| head periodically inflict on me that I call Embarrassment Day,
| where I spend the day remembering past incidents that I'm
| embarrassed about. Lots of fun.
|
| The silver lining of course is that if you're embarrassed about
| things in the past, it means you've grown enough since then to
| be embarrassed about them. If all you want to do is double down
| on everything you did, either you were already perfect or you
| haven't grown at all since then.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| You're not scheduling interactions with this system, you're
| just reminding yourself about the people you enjoyed talking
| to.
|
| Nothing prevents you from talking to these people more
| frequently, this system seems more like a way to nudge you to
| remind you about conversations you forgot.
| freeopinion wrote:
| I moved back to my hometown 20 years after leaving. At one
| point I thought I should pull out my old yearbooks to try to
| remember who everyone was. I decided that was a bad idea. It
| would be better to learn who everyone is.
| irrational wrote:
| I don't want my wife to every meet my friends from my teenage
| and early 20s for exactly this reason.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I'm on the same boat,however one things I learned with my kids
| is that you can apologize for what you feel embarrassed about.
|
| I've resumed chatting with some people this way (even though
| they didn't feel there was a need)
| travisporter wrote:
| I dunno, I am very bad on the phone and an introvert but I
| found that even after a few years I have people who are
| genuinely happy to speak with me. I forced myself to call one
| of them last week and reconnected. Not my best friend but feels
| good
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| The forcing is weird, right? Why in the world does it take so
| much work to reach out to someone?
|
| The obvious explanation would be fear of rejection.
|
| Another story you could tell is fear of connection due to
| opportunity cost -- what if, among all the people you could
| connect with, this one isn't a great choice but will end up
| consuming a lot of your time?
|
| But I think it's probably the first.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: <<The forcing is weird, right? Why in the world
| does it take so much work to reach out to someone?>>
|
| No, forcing isn't weird if you have an introverted
| personality. I work with many people who have a strongly
| introverted personality. (I am a mixed bag!) They have
| taught me lots of social skills about how to interactive
| with people who have a different type of personality.
|
| I am happy that the GP made the effort to make contact with
| "old friends". I hope the other side understood it was a
| big leap for you and made a good effort to be a friendly
| contact. I with GP luck in their effort to maintain contact
| while being an introverted person!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| It's simpler than that. I don't feel the need to maintain
| relationships for my day to day well being, but I force
| myself to, because I don't want to die alone someday. But I
| also recognize that I'm an extreme hermit/introvert who is
| happy calling my dog my "SO", and will probably end up
| dying alone in a cabin in the woods someday, so it may all
| just be futile anyway.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| I really am of two minds. My natural inclination until I
| was married was to stay in and hack computer music most
| of the time, work out when it seemed like a good time, go
| to coffee with people at work, and maybe go to a party
| once a week. But my favorite experiences are usually
| conversations. Mountains, oceans, etc. are nice too but
| really the most fun I have is in conversation. And yet I
| have to force myself to pursue it.
| post-it wrote:
| I _hate_ when a service normally sends emails from Service
| Name, but then once in a while they send an email from
| Firstname Lastname to make it look personal. It 's not going to
| work, but it sure is annoying.
| acwan93 wrote:
| There's a CRM of some sort that sends emails I've received
| that even mentions a nearby restaurant or point of interest
| in its emails. It's trying so hard to be personal it's
| laughable.
| _moof wrote:
| This is me 100%. Although I've found that when I do talk to
| folks and apologize for some of the shittiest shittiness, more
| often than not they don't even remember what I'm talking about.
| The lesson here, for me at least, is that I blow things way out
| of proportion. (This is not surprising news.)
| skhm wrote:
| Or, alternatively, they're giving you a polite "out" and
| enabling mutual forgetting. I've been on the wrong side of
| this dynamic too many times and I think that when the other
| person claims not to remember, most of the time they're
| telling the truth - of course they didn't ruminate on that-
| thing-you-did as much as you did - but sometimes, I think
| it's intentional amnesia to avoid the social overhead of
| addressing the event head-on.
| lkrubner wrote:
| I've mentioned this a few times on Hacker News, and I've gotten
| some great turnout, so I'll mention this again: I host a once-a-
| month party in New York City, mostly tech people, especially
| during the warmer months. See photos here:
|
| http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/everyone-was-amazing-...
|
| If you live in New York City and you want to expand your circle
| of tech people (and also some theater people and artists), feel
| free to reach out to me. Phone number in bio.
| Extropy_ wrote:
| This reminded me of something I believe I saw on here some time
| ago: https://github.com/monicahq/monica
|
| EDIT: Yeah, I saw it here on HN
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25270001).
| [deleted]
| bsaul wrote:
| This post has to be one of the most archetypal one on HN.
| Rationalizing human interactions with friends through the use of
| planification tools.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Some people put birthdays in their calendars. I don't see how
| using recurring reminders in order to initiate contact is
| fundamentally different.
| sweetheart wrote:
| Normally I'd totally agree with you and cringe at what feels
| like ridiculous over-engineering of what should be a natural
| and effortless process... but I was just thinking last night
| how hard it's been for me to live hours from all my closest
| friends, and how covid has made it so much harder for me to get
| my extroverted needs met. My closest friends are, for the most
| part, our highschool friend group of 15 or so people who live
| across many states and a couple countries. Juggling all those
| incredibly important friendships gets hard without a nudge and
| a reminder to call or text them.
|
| It's a good problem to have, too many friends.
| alecbz wrote:
| +1, my gut reaction is definitely to cringe at stuff like
| this but I can't deny that I think it's actually really
| helpful. Like I wish I was good enough at being social
| naturally that I wouldn't need something like this, but I'm
| not.
|
| I've tried something similar but a bit lighter-weight once,
| just a sheet with people and the last time I hung out with
| them, with conditional formatting to highlight the ones with
| dates further back.
|
| I think honestly more than reminding me when to initiate
| contact with whom, the real benefit is a forcing function for
| initiating contact with someone I've not talked to in a
| while. I can feel awkward about it, but if there's a
| spreadsheet telling me to do it, I find it's easier to get
| over that.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Normally I'd totally agree with you and cringe at what
| feels like ridiculous over-engineering of what should be a
| natural and effortless process...
|
| To some people (like myself) human interaction does not come
| that _natural_.[1] The "naturals" then scoff (or even cringe)
| at the deliberate steps we have to take, as if we should just
| curl up in the corner and whither away. (That's what I've
| done but that's besides the point.)
|
| [1] It might come natural to the OP of course. Maybe they
| just like to be structured in this particular area of life.
| sweetheart wrote:
| Yeah, I agree with you. I think that invalidating tools and
| procedures like this is just being a little less than
| empathetic to folks who struggle a bit more with social
| interactions. It's worth pushing back on the narrative that
| there is a correct way to have your friendships.
| architexture wrote:
| Why do we need to optimize everything?
| mettamage wrote:
| 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 think it's perfectly fine to separate emotions and reason like
| this. The reason: I am on the other side when it comes to
| managing my friends: I am not separating reason and emotion.
| Because of that, I am failing hard at staying in touch with
| people that I would like to stay in touch with (I am noticing it
| with certain friends of my as well). I am succeeding to stay in
| touch with a few people, but if I'd have a system like this I
| might be able to stay in touch with many more people that I'd
| like to stay in touch with anyway but for some unknown reason
| have some sort of blockade or friction.
|
| Other than that I think the interpretation is not charitable
| enough, I also have personal experience that it might be wrong.
| For example, I view the dating markets strictly from a market
| perspective that is heavily inspired by micro-economics and
| "common sense". Initially, such a perspective is detached from
| emotion, but there are certain points where it is attached (e.g.
| with supply/demand questions like: "what do I want/need from a
| partner" or "What can I offer? What do I want to offer? What do I
| need to offer?"). Moreover, upon meeting people there is empathy,
| sympathy and human intuition involved. Sometimes the emotions
| will be so strong that I have a compulsion towards meeting a
| person again (e.g. falling in love). Those emotions are not
| helping! Sometimes I feel the right amount that is also in line
| with my other needs and in other cases I don't feel enough about
| a certain person _when I don 't see them_ (but when I do see
| them, I am delighted to catch up).
|
| Management of personal life != how people are on a moment by
| moment basis in personal life
|
| I think by having a system like this, you can put Dunbar's number
| to shame.
| zoom6628 wrote:
| Yep. I'm bad at contacting family and my 700+ ppl in LinkedIn
| and yes I know them all or would not add them in the first
| place. Definitely going to try this.
| gjulianm wrote:
| 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 why are these people still
| "friends"?
|
| - Lack of flexibility. Organic relationships will have
| different contact frequencies over time. For example, I might
| have inconsistent contacts with a friend that I've known for a
| long time because of reasons, but if they're having a rough
| time I will probably be more attentive and want to contact them
| more frequently.
|
| - Relationships are two-way, so you'd expect that the other
| part initiates contact a significant amount of the times. Given
| the myriad of ways that contact can happen, updating the
| database for hundreds of people can be a real hassle. The fact
| that this is not mentioned at all indicates that a lot of these
| might be one-way relationships, not actual friendships.
|
| - I find it really really hard to write non-artificial messages
| when contacting on a schedule. Maybe the first one can be
| believable, but the second or third time you contact someone
| without any obvious trigger, it starts to feel weird. I think
| most people would catch wind that the other person is not
| contacting organically but on some kind of schedule, and I
| guess it could make them feel really weird about it: "This
| person doesn't really think of me, doesn't see any of my social
| media/blog/whatever updates... why are they contacting me?"
|
| I understand what other people are saying in the comments about
| forgetting to contact people or being too busy, and needing
| reminders. But I don't think that's the same problem the author
| is solving.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > Relationships are two-way, so you'd expect that the other
| part initiates contact a significant amount of the times.
|
| 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.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I get that can happen with some relationships. But with all
| of them? I think that even accounting for some
| relationships where contact is one-sided, maintaining the
| "last contact" column is going to be a real hassle, and I
| find it weird it's not even mentioned.
|
| > Kinda like TCP, you can have an open connection even
| though nothing is sent over it.
|
| I honestly don't think so. A consistent lack of response
| usually indicates the other person doesn't care.
|
| > 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.
|
| And I do think that the best thing to do in that case is to
| tell them that they should make an effort to initiate
| contact. I don't need them to be on a schedule, but I'd
| like to think that my friends won't forget about me
| completely if I stop contacting them.
|
| Again, I get that some relationships can be one-sided. But
| not all. That's why I find it weird that the system doesn't
| really plan for that.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > maintaining the "last contact" column is going to be a
| real hassle, and I find it weird it's not even mentioned.
|
| This is one thing I thought about doing, but it seems
| like there's a lot of APIs that are now closed. But also,
| relationships are not like a tennis match, it's ok to
| write twice.
|
| > I honestly don't think so. A consistent lack of
| response usually indicates the other person doesn't care.
|
| I send out a load of mails over New Year's almost each
| year, and each year someone writes in April or July
| saying "OMG I forgot to write back" and then picks up the
| thread. There's no reason the people who never write back
| have decided not to, except in very obvious circumstances
| of relationship breakdown.
|
| > I'd like to think that my friends won't forget about me
| completely if I stop contacting them
|
| They won't forget you but they also won't contact you. A
| lot of people just feel weird about it.
|
| Mostly I guess I'm default-positive. Very few people have
| ever let it be known, directly or indirectly, not to
| write to them anymore.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > This is one thing I thought about doing, but it seems
| like there's a lot of APIs that are now closed. But also,
| relationships are not like a tennis match, it's ok to
| write twice.
|
| I know, but if the tool stops being synced with reality,
| it loses value and in the end you can end up ignoring it
| because it's not up to date and then because it's not up
| to date it has even less value.
|
| > I send out a load of mails over New Year's almost each
| year, and each year someone writes in April or July
| saying "OMG I forgot to write back" and then picks up the
| thread. There's no reason the people who never write back
| have decided not to, except in very obvious circumstances
| of relationship breakdown.
|
| But that's not a consistent lack of response, it's just
| someone missing one interaction. I imagine that if you
| write someone on new years and they never answer, at some
| point you stop sending them messages, right?
|
| > They won't forget you but they also won't contact you.
| A lot of people just feel weird about it.
|
| I do not agree, people might get used to the other person
| contacting and not think about sending a message, but I
| don't think feeling weird is common. Of course this is
| personal experience, so I can't know the universal
| experience.
| mettamage wrote:
| > They won't forget you but they also won't contact you.
| A lot of people just feel weird about it.
|
| Or lazy, or forgetful, or they never thought this was a
| "thing" (basically 0 initiative). All three apply to me,
| and I need to change it. IMO, the system outlined by the
| author seems worth trying (or any other systems that I'm
| picking up in the comments).
| Vivtek wrote:
| Look, I'm 55 years old. There are people I haven't heard from
| in maybe thirty years, easy. I wouldn't mind catching up on
| those people yearly - and it would be at least a thirty-fold
| improvement over my current management technique, right?
| terafo wrote:
| 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 to contact them, you have prompt "you are about
| to loose contact, do you REALLY want to do that?".
|
| > _I find it really really hard to write non-artificial
| messages when contacting on a schedule. Maybe the first one
| can be believable, but the second or third time you contact
| someone without any obvious trigger, it starts to feel weird.
| I think most people would catch wind that the other person is
| not contacting organically but on some kind of schedule, and
| I guess it could make them feel really weird about it: "This
| person doesn't really think of me, doesn't see any of my
| social media/blog/whatever updates... why are they contacting
| me?"_
|
| 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. I doubt that
| nothing interesting happened to person in three months that
| you hadn't spoke with them, so you have something to talk
| about. And some people don't use social media, and asking
| about their wellbeing is completely normal.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > but you have baseline level of commitment to every
| relationship.
|
| 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).
| mettamage wrote:
| There are tons of people that I see only once per year,
| and I always have a blast with them. We're both fine it's
| on a very low backburner. Tons of people are like this.
|
| And like I said in a previous post, I don't manage my
| friendships in a rational way. This just happens. So I
| can definitely see it being a category if I'd manage my
| friendships in a more formal/rational way.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| 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!
| gjulianm wrote:
| > 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.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| 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.
| mattcwilson wrote:
| And yet, after 20 years of that approach, you might have
| lost some people you'd have a really difficult time
| trying to get back.
|
| If I may, it seems like you're assuming "if I only talk
| to this person once a year, it's not worth it. Especially
| if I have to contrive some basis for reaching out." If
| it's that difficult, and that low value, sure, don't
| bother.
|
| But the other lens to apply here is "how at risk am I of
| never talking to this person again if I don't manage to
| say something, however simple, at least <once a year>?"
| There may be folks in your life with whom your
| relationship is threatened if you don't consciously make
| an effort, or if you don't have a system like this to
| help you.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > But the other lens to apply here is "how at risk am I
| of never talking to this person again if I don't manage
| to say something, however simple, at least <once a
| year>?" There may be folks in your life with whom your
| relationship is threatened if you don't consciously make
| an effort, or if you don't have a system like this to
| help you.
|
| But do you really need to build a system to talk to
| people once a year? Just reviewing your contact list on
| Christmas is going to achieve the same thing, and I bet
| it doesn't give off as weird vibes.
|
| Another issue is that, if after 20 years, you've only
| managed to contact people once a year, I don't think any
| system is going to save that relationship.
| p_l wrote:
| Seeing at how my handling of contacting people and not
| only goes? I'd like that system, enhanced with direct
| mental prodding, too.
| terafo wrote:
| > _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._
|
| If your interactions sum up to a baseline level for a few
| times, you should lower frequency with which you contact
| a person. If it is already at the lowest level, you
| should stop talking. You are just making sure that you
| don't loose contact with anyone who you don't want to
| loose contact with, that's all.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Well, that's my point. Putting someone in the "once a
| year" category means you're putting them in the path for
| that relationship to disappear without actually doing
| anything to try to fix it. Like you're in a car going
| towards a cliff, and you're not accelerating but you're
| not pressing the brake either.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I send all my former clients and coworkers an email every
| year to wish a happy new year and ask them how things are
| going/how the latest projects I knew they were working on
| is going.
|
| It's very different to having no contact at all. It's
| always nice when you end up working with them again. They
| know you are not only a mercenary and view the
| relationship as something which will exist in time.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Well, this is precisely the point some commenters are
| making, that it feels more like a system for clients and
| companies and business contacts than for actual personal
| relationships.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Business relationships are personal relationships. I
| maintain them even when I change companies or when I
| don't presently work in the field. Relationships exist on
| a continuum from close friends to acquaintances.
| gjulianm wrote:
| To me a business relationship is a business where you
| don't really care about the person but about the
| business/work potential. Of course you can make personal
| relationships in business, but those are different
| things.
|
| And yes, "relationship" technically includes any kind of
| relation between two persons, but I think the context
| makes it clear that I'm talking mostly about friendships.
| And I really don't think one can call a relationship a
| friendship when consistently the contact happens once a
| year because of a scheduled reminder.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > And yes, "relationship" technically includes any kind
| of relation between two persons, but I think the context
| makes it clear that I'm talking mostly about friendships.
|
| Well, no, a relationship is a relationship and a
| friendship is a friendship. Both the original post and
| the discussion are about maintaining contacts with people
| which is broader than strictly friendship.
|
| > To me a business relationship is a business where you
| don't really care about the person but about the
| business/work potential. Of course you can make personal
| relationships in business, but those are different
| things.
|
| I don't see things this way. Business relationships
| remain interpersonal relationships. While these
| relationships keep a level of formality and distance they
| remain meaningful. I will send a card for meaningful
| events in the life of the customers and coworkers I have
| known for a long time. It is never strictly economical.
| olivertaylor wrote:
| I use a much simpler system, I have recurring reminders setup
| and when they trigger I just reach out to that person. I try
| to keep things light, like a text message, photo, link, etc.
| the great thing is that you can use the same
| message/photo/link for everyone. At first it felt impersonal
| but the message is always simply a trigger for the
| conversation that comes next. Ultimately it doesn't matter
| what you say when you reach out.
| cehrlich wrote:
| I have a similarly non-cynical view of this and am considering
| to implement something similar for myself.
|
| The reasons are simple:
|
| 1. I don't want to wake up one day 20 or so years from now and
| realize that I'm old and lonely.
|
| 2. It's possible to lose friends/acquaintances if you don't
| talk to them for some amount of time
|
| 3. I am generally happy when people I've had positive
| interactions with in the past contact me out of the blue
|
| 4. However I am bad at doing this myself
|
| 5. It is reasonable to assume that the above also applies to
| many other people, so why not take the initiative?
|
| Of course you could use this system to spam and annoy people,
| do unsavory marketing stuff, etc. but that doesn't mean it's
| not a useful framework for staying in touch with people who
| would be happy that someone is staying in touch with them.
| Vivtek wrote:
| Absolutely. When Facebook got to the point that my old
| friends and family were ubiquitously present, it was a
| godsend. I reestablished contact with people I hadn't heard
| from for years, kept up-to-date on family that I would
| otherwise not have heard from - it was great.
|
| Lately, Facebook doesn't do a very good job of this, so I've
| been thinking of better ways of doing it. Something like an
| email reminder might work.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| I made it a habit to speak to a friend every day of the week
| while taking my walk. The rest follows effortlessly - I
| usually rotate friends and end up with 7 to 10 people in a
| frequent conversation pool.
| unkulunkulu wrote:
| I see this easily implementable in Obsidian with Dataview plugin,
| with random notes about ppl to boot. Like gift ideas etc. I have
| notes for important people in my life anyway cause I have
| terrible memory :/
| smithloe wrote:
| inter_netuser wrote:
| This should be SaaSified and sold for $5/15/25 per month, with
| AI-generated trivial empty messages.
|
| Also, you could sign-up for the antipode service, for only $50 a
| month, which will reply on your behalf to such AI-generated
| postcards.
|
| Soon, we'll just have chatbots congratulating each other on
| birthdays and such.
|
| Isn't life wonderful? /s
| ar_imani wrote:
| Actually, it is a helpful system to be in touch with ex-coworker
| or colleagues or even some old classmates, but a sad one for
| friends and relatives.
| genezeta wrote:
| Derek Sivers seems kinda cool. I mean, I used to read him back in
| the times of CDBaby and he seemed like a nice person. Of course,
| I can only say he _seems_ so because I haven 't really met him. I
| don't _know_ him.
|
| Later, I would receive some of his emails and while they always
| did feel honest and thoughtful, I always understood we'd never
| even _talked_ to each other. Sometimes I could think it was
| "just a commercial email" to present this book or whatever. Other
| times he would just sort of talk, about things in his life,
| "without anything to sell". But whatever the case it was clear I
| was "on a list".
|
| ----
|
| _I_ keep very few contacts. Probably too few. There 's only a
| handful of people I talk to _regularly_. There is a woman I love
| quite dearly and we talk on the phone maybe once a week,
| sometimes less, sometimes more. Some other very close friends,
| less than I can count on my fingers, and again we talk
| occasionally, randomly. Maybe every few days, maybe once a month
| or less.
|
| I have been postponing visiting them because of other personal
| circumstances, but we know that's just how things are at the
| moment and that we'll see each other "soon". Those friendships
| will not disappear even if, for whatever reason, we don't get a
| chance to talk or see each other for a couple of months or
| longer.
|
| There's also a larger number of acquaintances. Friends, but less
| close. Ex-coworkers or ex-colleagues. There's this group that
| likes, say, comic books and I'm giving away my collection. So I
| might just throw an email in their direction because I remember
| they liked that. Someone may be interested. We'll meet and talk
| about whatever past and present we may have in common -or not-,
| maybe have a drink or a tea or maybe not, I'll give them the
| comics and then maybe I won't see them again for years. Maybe
| forever, because life is that way and you never know.
|
| ----
|
| I've always felt Derek's approach to keeping in contact...
| interesting. I mean, if that works for him, then great. But I
| think that the system is a lot more for _his benefit_ than for
| the benefit of the relationships themselves. And again, great for
| him. I mean it. But I don 't feel the _need_ for such a system
| for myself and I feel like not many people do.
| sivers wrote:
| Thanks for this feedback. For what it's worth, the "keep in
| touch with hundreds" system I describe in this post is not the
| one you've encountered me using. It sounds like you're just on
| my list, as you said.
|
| The "keep in touch" approach is more for the people you meet
| in-person, say if you go to conferences and meet 50 people in a
| weekend, or are out working as a musician constantly meeting
| fellow music industry people while on the road.
|
| It's different than the "broadcast - follow" relationship.
| genezeta wrote:
| Oh, hi :)
|
| I hope I didn't say anything inconvenient. I sincerely
| appreciate you even if we've never met.
|
| And thank you for the clarification, of course.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Of course, not everyone publishes content or updates regularly.
| In that case, I usually just ask what they've been up to lately.
|
| > You'd be surprised how many people are really happy to get
| these kinds of messages and they often spark all kinds of deeper
| conversations.
|
| I had an acquaintance I barely had any common interests with that
| every few weeks out of the blue would ask me "what's up?". Not
| once did it lead to any value for me or him and just mildly
| annoyed me and made me less likely to cooperate if he ever needed
| help. I'd still help him, because I'm a helpful person but I'd
| have more mixed feelings about it than if he was just memory of
| last pleasant interaction from few years prior than fresh memory
| of scheduled networking/nagging.
|
| I think if you can't personalize approach to provide value to
| that person with your interactions you should skip keeping in
| touch because you might be worse off.
| soapdog wrote:
| An important aspect of this kind of workflow -- one that is
| kinda glossed over in the convo here -- is that the
| relationship one have with a contact is fluid. If the convo
| with a contact is cool, and you're both having fun, you're
| probably gonna bump to more frequent exchanges, while if the
| contact never seems to engage, you're probably going to bump
| them down or even remove them from the workflow. There is no
| point in annoying people.
|
| Clearly, this acquaintance of yours is not taking your lack of
| response into account. Or, they're just trying to get closer to
| you and you might be reading their message as inpersonal when
| it is actually genuine. Anyway, I can't see myself sending
| multiple messages per month to someone who never answers back.
| nlh wrote:
| You know it's funny - I read your comment earlier today and it
| stuck out because I have one old acquaintance who does the same
| thing -- we really weren't that close when we lived in the same
| city but he still pings me every once in a while just to say
| "what's up?". For some reason I find it exceedingly annoying,
| although I generally really like staying in touch with people.
|
| Anyway, as if his ears were burning, he actually sent me a
| "what's up?" text about 5 minutes ago (first time in a year).
| So I had to come back here and comment because the timing was
| just too perfect :)
| laurex wrote:
| I don't think there's a problem with the formula here in terms of
| maintaining professional contacts, but it does seem like an
| interesting--and quite recent--phenomenon that staying in touch
| with hundreds of people is even desirable unless you are doing
| sales.
|
| There's certainly utility and yet, it's staggering just how few
| people do the more rewarding and impactful (with lots of research
| to back it up) work of daily connection with one or two people.
|
| I would venture to say that it's even more 'socially acceptable'
| to put effort into cultivating weak ties that stay weak than to
| do the work to transform non-romantic relationships into close
| friendships.
| a1445c8b wrote:
| I also have a database I created with Airtable! Although I'm
| rather weary of using "free" 3rd-party systems and considering
| using one I have better control over.
|
| I'm thinking an SQLite db with a separate open source data
| viewer/editor
| globular-toast wrote:
| The bad reactions here make me wonder what _is_ an acceptable way
| to stay in contact with your friends. Consider the enormous
| popularity of social networking. What is that for if not to help
| you to stay in contact with people? Why is that OK but this isn
| 't? People used to (some still do) write Christmas cards to
| everybody in their address book. Many of these would be people
| they had made zero contact with over the year. Again, why is that
| OK but this isn't?
|
| I wonder if it's because this makes it too obvious what is going
| on. It fits a pattern I've noticed in general. People need
| plausible deniability. When things are made explicit like this,
| people don't like it.
|
| Remember how long it took online dating to become popular? Part
| of that was how explicit it was. You were basically shouting "I
| am lonely and wish I had a partner". That was too much for many.
| Even now the popular online dating apps nurture plausible
| deniability (only on there for a laugh, to "meet people", to
| "make friends" etc.)
| codesforhugs wrote:
| For me personally the difference is that with social networking
| I'm reacting to something someone else posted or vice versa,
| which makes it organic. Being cold contacted on the other hand
| generally results in exchanges that feel stilted and weird to
| me.
| jakobov wrote:
| I also do this and it's really nice. But use a recurring Google
| calendar event. Way more simple
| k__ wrote:
| a friend of mine would send all people he knew new years wishes
| via regular mail.
|
| It was hundreds of letters he would all print out and sign
| manually.
|
| Most people would ignore it, a few even found it offiensive fo
| receive a mass letter.
|
| But every year dozens answered with a happy reply.
| cpach wrote:
| Very nice gesture from him IMHO.
| mebreuer wrote:
| 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.
| p0d wrote:
| I don't want to keep in touch with more people than I have
| digits. I would call the desire to do so marketing; that is
| marketing yourself or your business. Which is fine if this is
| your motivation.
|
| Friendship is your partner who sticks by you. It is the person
| you go for walks with and just talk. It is the person you meet
| for lunch and you argue about who pays. It is the person who
| knows what is going on in your life. It is the person whose floor
| you have slept on. It is the person who listens to you and then
| takes action.
| telesilla wrote:
| I keep a birthday calendar, also for my friend's kids. I stay in
| touch over the years this way really well, along with the
| occasional 'something popped up that reminded me of you'. For
| closer friends, it ebbs and flows naturally or as we travel.
|
| How do you get someone's birthday? Ask them! Everyone is
| delighted to tell you, even if they are shy. The possibility of a
| future greeting is very meaningful.
| jdlyga wrote:
| This is exactly what I need. I'm so bad at keeping in contact
| with friends, extended family, ex-coworkers. I try to make an
| effort for a few weeks / months, but I end up getting distracted
| by a stressful new work project, school, new stuff going on at
| home, etc.
| keiferski wrote:
| I don't think this is fake or forced at all. It's just a
| necessary counteraction to the way the modern world is
| constructed. In the past, you'd maintain all of these weak social
| connections automatically, simply by going about your daily life.
| You'd talk to your coworkers daily, the baker/grocer/butcher a
| few times a week, neighbors weekly at the church, other citizens
| monthly at a town hall, and so on. You didn't need a system
| because it just happened naturally.
|
| These days, most of these situations have been removed. Workers
| change jobs every couple years (and can work remotely), most
| people barely speak to their neighbors, grocery stores are either
| huge and faceless or just have items delivered by an anonymous
| gig worker, town halls don't really exist, etc.
|
| If you think that social connections have value (and they almost
| always do), this is the rational move.
| adnmcq999 wrote:
| smilespray wrote:
| That was my first thought, too. Then I thought, I should
| probably make more of an effort to stay in touch with people.
| Just not this way.
| jakobgreenfeld wrote:
| What could be a good alternative?
| smilespray wrote:
| I'm going to set aside an hour every couple of weeks and do
| it manually. Any automation beyond that would feel a little
| fake or forced to me, personally.
| terafo wrote:
| I don't think that's a good idea. If you set aside some
| time every few weeks to do that it won't fell good. You
| will be contacting many people in the little span of time
| and won't be able to have a conversation with all of
| them. On the other side, if you have your contact
| reminders distributed so you have just a couple of them
| per day, that way you can really care about each and
| every time you contact a person.
| awkward wrote:
| The OP's system seems good, but the initial system, where the guy
| lists everyone he knows by A, B, C and D seems like he's creating
| informational toxic waste, IE something that causes damage if it
| gets out.
|
| Even if all it means is they get less emails, who the hell wants
| to find themselves categorized as acquaintance level D.
| claaams wrote:
| But if you grind out friendship rep points you can pretty
| easily get to B tier. A tier takes finesse and finding their
| favorite gift.
| awkward wrote:
| Going to take a page from gaming and classify friends as
| Unobtanium, platinum, gold, silver.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - if you talk to someone
| twice a year you wouldn't expect to be in their closest friends
| group. I can't imagine someone being offended by this as a
| mature adult.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| You could just remove the ranking system and store the
| intervals directly. Saying "this is someone I talk to annually"
| is not nearly as offensive as, "this is a rank D person."
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Even if all it means is they get less emails, who the hell
| wants to find themselves categorized as acquaintance level D.
|
| If the feeling is mutual then that's completely fine. The only
| problem is when there's a mismatch.
|
| There might be people who get hurt when they find out that
| Peter, who they consider to be barely a friend, does in fact
| _not_ consider them to be a best friend. But that sounds
| pathological.
| robtherobber wrote:
| Sounds like the system could be created using
| https://www.monicahq.com/ Personally, I never had the discipline
| to turn this into a useful tool, but I definitely see the value
| in it from the perspective suggested by the author.
| wccrawford wrote:
| 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.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Seems really arbitrary to call one way organic and to deride
| the other approach like that. Everyone will figure out for
| themselves how much structure and organization that they need.
| josefrichter wrote:
| Sir, is a bitter comment like this necessary?
| wccrawford wrote:
| I was aiming for "helpful" to people who think they need
| hundreds of contacts and are looking to maintain actual
| relationships with them, and not just fulfill quotas.
|
| 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.
| josefrichter wrote:
| I beg to differ. There may be millions of reasons why you
| grew disconnected from someone.
|
| Don't you have situations where you think I wish I had more
| regular contact with this person, because he/she seemed
| like a genuine good egg? What's wrong with making the extra
| effort and actually create a reminder for yourself to at
| least say hi once in a while?
|
| And vice versa - would you feel bad getting contacted by
| someone whom you worked with years ago, just asking how
| you're doing, and not actually wanting anything from you?
| iamben wrote:
| I get the point you're making. That said there are definitely
| people in my life that are (very obviously) better and worse at
| reaching out, and I assume it's similar for most people? I have
| friends who are phenomenal at reaching out frequently, saying
| "whatcha up to, shall we get a drink?" I also have friends who
| (because of family, work, location, whatever) will never do
| this, but absolutely _jump_ at the chance to meet if you offer
| them one.
|
| I'm not suggesting those who are good at contacting people use
| some sort of scheduling tool - it's probably just that their
| personality type suits doing it and they're usually the middle
| of a social group. Some people are naturally better at this
| kind of thing than others, right?
|
| So I absolutely see the advantage of giving yourself a mental
| nudge to call, message or email people. I don't think it's in
| the slightest in-organic and I doubt a single person would
| think "oh, it's 6 months to the day I last spoke to this
| person" - more so they'd probably just think "oh, it was nice
| to hear from X". I have an alert to call my mum / dad every
| week or so. I don't always do it, but I appreciate the reminder
| and they appreciate the call.
|
| I'll probably give this kind of set up a go at some point.
| smm11 wrote:
| Wow. I don't know enough people even begin something like this,
| but impressive!
| nanna wrote:
| Could imagine you could do something like this in Emacs org mode
| just by keeping a repeated SCHEDULED: datestamp under someone's
| name, say in a file called contacts.org? Using airtables seems a
| bit overengineered * Contacts * Alissa p
| hacker SCHEDULED: <2022-03-14 Mon .+3m>
| sivers wrote:
| (I'm the guy he refers to in that post.)
|
| If anyone reading this builds software like this, and releases it
| publicly, whether free or for sale, please let me know. I'd be
| happy to send people your way.
|
| Because of https://sive.rs/dbt I get a few emails a week from
| strangers, asking if my software is public yet, or if not, what
| else I would recommend. (And I might never make my software
| public. It's too tied-in to my now-complex PostgreSQL system of
| everything.)
|
| I'm definitely going to send people to Jakob's post here now. But
| if interested in this subject, please email me here:
|
| https://sive.rs/contact
| christiangenco wrote:
| 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 structure I can do a bunch of cool things
| with simple scripts:
|
| - print out a list of upcoming birthdays, half birthdays,
| birthdays on Jupiter, etc. of all my friends - print out a list
| of friends I haven't contacted within my desired `frequency`
| (the subject of this post) - create or open the friend file
| containing a particular name from the command line (ex:
| `,people Sarah` prints out all the Sarah files I have and asks
| me which I'd like to open)
|
| I think plain text is the way to go with something as personal
| as a system for keeping track of your friends. I was inspired
| to go this route by your post on journaling[1]:
|
| > If digital, use only plain text. It's a standard format not
| owned by any company. It will be readable in 50 years on
| devices we haven't even imagined yet. Don't use formats that
| can only be read by one program, because that program won't be
| around in 50 years. Don't use the cloud, unless you're also
| going to download it weekly and back it up in plain text
| outside that cloud. (Companies shut down. Clouds disappear.
| Think long-term.)
|
| I've been chewing on how to make this system something that
| might be used by other people who don't know how to use the
| command line. Something like the way Obsidian[2] works might
| make sense.
|
| 1. https://sive.rs/dj
|
| 2. https://obsidian.md/
| sivers wrote:
| That's amazing!
|
| In 25+ years of keeping people in my database, and writing
| plain text all day, I'd never once considered keeping my list
| of people in plain text files.
|
| Thanks for the description and inspiration.
| christiangenco wrote:
| You bet! You're also one of my heroes so I'd be absolutely
| delighted to chat with you more about this problem on a
| call or something.
| throw10920 wrote:
| 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't
| care about tagging or sorting by date or whatever), but it
| sounds like you do (based on "Based off of that structure I
| can do a bunch of cool things with simple scripts"), so:
|
| "Plain text" is mutually exclusive with machine-parsing,
| because "plain text" is not a format. If I create a text file
| for each of my friends, and somewhere in each file is an
| English-language description of my friend's name, then that
| is both (a) plain-text and (b) not machine-parseable at all.
|
| A "format" is necessarily structured - something like "each
| line of this file represents a "row", which is divided into
| "fields" by commas". But then you don't have a plain-text
| file - you have CSV, or JSON, or something that's a _subset_
| of "plain text file", but is still a structured, machine-
| parseable format.
|
| Even if you do what I did and create your own ad-hoc format
| like "text files are broken into "blobs", where each blob is
| separated from others by a blank line, and has a header
| consisting of the blob name..." - that's _still_ not plain
| text. You 've still invented your own structured-object-
| embedded-in-text format - except that because you aren't
| using JSON or XML or CSV, you're incompatible with every tool
| in existence, and have to write tools to parse, lint,
| generate, and process these files yourself.
|
| (and, hence, it's not a "standard format" - each ad-hoc
| plain-text-embedded format is different, except for the ones
| that are either accidentally exactly the same, or the ones
| that are standardized and have names - at which point plain-
| text purists claim that they're no longer plain-text)
|
| You use Markdown - which means that you have _all_ of the
| problems above, because Markdown encodes _formatting_ , not
| _structure_. You even alluded to it yourself - you say that
| "...I can do a bunch of cool things with simple scripts"
| because you had to write those scripts to handle your own
| custom format, instead of just using JSON and writing
| data["first-name"] in Python.
|
| It's your system, so you can do what you want - just don't
| fool yourself (or others) into believing that you're saving
| effort, because you're not - you're just reinventing a wheel
| that has been reinvented _millions_ of times before.
|
| (this isn't meant to be a random rant - I'm currently in the
| middle of rewriting my own system from using my own custom,
| ad-hoc structured text format to using s-expressions and
| typed objects. there's hundreds of thousands of objects
| spanning thousands of files, and the process is absolutely
| miserable - I want to save as many other people from having
| to go through this as I can)
| christiangenco wrote:
| 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."
| skydhash wrote:
| 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.
| samatman wrote:
| Not at all to bikeshed your tool, which I'm sure works just
| fine, but this is the sort of application where GNU Recutils
| really shines.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/recutils/
|
| I mention it because it doesn't get the attention that it
| deserves, as a format midway between relational data in
| database and plain-old-text.
| jtolmar wrote:
| I've been working on one of these on and off for a while now!
|
| It'll eventually be up on gosayhito.com. I'll try to remind you
| when it's done, but you can also probably put the website in as
| a monthly thing to check on.
| runjake wrote:
| Glad to see you back -- at least for a couple comments, Derek!
| sivers wrote:
| Thanks Jake! I read HN every day, but almost never log in to
| post.
| ssivark wrote:
| You might find Perkeep interesting: https://perkeep.org/
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I haven't talked to anyone outside of my family since the
| beginning of the pandemic and I assume the fact that no one's
| contacted me means I shouldn't bother? Not really sure how this
| kind of thing works.
| city17 wrote:
| I could see this being helpful with staying in touch with people
| you don't want to be friends but you want to keep up to date with
| professionally. Using this for your personal life is just sad.
| camillomiller wrote:
| "We needed a tutor
|
| So built a computer
|
| And programmed ourselves not to see
|
| The truth and the lying
|
| The dead and the dying
|
| A silent majority"
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| I don't understand the problems with this approach and I might
| adapt it. I have a bunch of business connections, but refrain
| from contacting them because A) social anxiety and B) not
| thinking about them because I'm drowning in daily business and
| life is hectic af sometimes. It would actually be very helpful to
| get reminded once in a while to do some "relationships" stuff
| (which I'm not good at). Of course you should be very mindful
| about using this. If you think of a person, write them, if you
| don't want to write them because you feel like you don't add any
| value for them, don't. Sounds easy to me.
|
| /e: I also wonder if this could be done with notion instead.
| vlokshin wrote:
| Simple and authentic feel like they're the magic formula here.
| Deceptively difficult to balance.
|
| For personal, I'm trying my best to text people when they come to
| mind. I always appreciate when someone does that to me.
|
| For business, I'm trying https://www.strata.cc/, which uses your
| email history to nudge you to reconnect with people. I'm just
| starting to use it but has already made some spot on
| recommendations in the first couple of weeks.
| pdimitar wrote:
| 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.
| jkirsteins wrote:
| There seems to be a non-fringe sentiment that "this is pretending
| to care" or "you can't automate friendship", etc.
|
| I see where it's coming from, and I agree to some extent - I
| wouldn't want to be contacted "for the sake of it". Feeling like
| it's a chore for the other person that they have to get through,
| in the hopes of some (maybe financial?) reward at the end of it.
|
| However, I think this approach warrants some defense against the
| "I would purposefully avoid people like this" reaction.
|
| Using myself as an example - I have considered doing something
| similar, and I liked the article a lot. And it's not because I
| "want to hack some serendipity", but because I genuinly have a
| hard time finding enough time for all the things that matter in
| life. Having a system in place doesn't mean it's fake, it means
| you are prioritizing this aspect of your life (i.e. you care
| enough) and are finding ways to fit it into everything else you
| have going on.
|
| In a normal workday I spend ~9 hours in "work mode". I want to
| fit in ~1-2h of running every day to counteract my sedentary
| lifestyle. I need to spend some quality time with the immediate
| family (wife and kids) - let's say ~2 hours. And there are
| additional little everyday tasks that need to happen every day -
| shopping, helping kids with their homework, doing the dishes,
| etc.
|
| How much time does this leave to socialize? I will occasionally
| think of some friend or another, and miss them. But I won't have
| time to reach out in the moment. And then - e.g. when the weekend
| comes - who do I reach out to? Do I spend every saturday just
| calling everybody in a row?
|
| I enjoy catching up with my friends, but it takes a lot of energy
| for me. I can't feasibly reach out to everybody in a given
| weekend - it would leave me completely drained, and exhausted.
|
| So I prioritize. I try to reach out to people I haven't spoken to
| in a longer time period. Or people I know have had some life
| event happen recently, etc. I try to find a way to keep in touch
| with most people, instead of just a few of them.
|
| But here's my issue - it's hard to remember how to schedule who
| to get in touch with, and when. "Did I last talk to X 1 week or 2
| weeks ago? Should I get in touch with Y instead?" etc.
|
| Now, I could start taking paper notes, or look at my calendar,
| etc. But at this point I'm setting up some mental system to help
| me with the scheduling. Which is basically just a different
| (possibly less efficient) flavor of what's described in the
| article.
|
| Now, maybe I'm projecting, and this doesn't apply to many others.
| But please consider - if you feel someone in your life is
| reaching out through automated means - that they might really
| care, and just have a hard time figuring out how to do it
| otherwise. If scheduling catch ups comes naturally to you, it
| might not to others.
|
| (and I know the article mentions "serendipity" and is not
| necessarily about catching up with close friends. I think it
| works well for both)
| MrYellowP wrote:
| > but because I genuinely have a hard time finding enough time
| for all the things that matter in life.
|
| Mate. It takes seconds to send a simple text message/mail "Hey,
| how're you doing?" while sitting on the toilet.
|
| Everyone sits on the toilet, quite regularly.
| greyman wrote:
| But this doesn't work for contacts I do not reach
| regularly... I just forget about them when I don't reach them
| at all for some longer time.
| 3qz wrote:
| That's good! It means people who aren't actually part of
| your busy life will get pruned out, and you'll be left with
| more time to deal with people who actually matter.
| WickyNilliams wrote:
| This is a weird take.
|
| I have friends I've known for decades, some of whom have
| moved to different cities, different countries, different
| continents even. I don't talk to them regularly - we all
| have our lives and it's easy to get caught up. It's not
| that these people don't matter, just that we're not as
| close - physically or otherwise - as we used to be. Many
| of these people, if we did meet again in person, we could
| pick up exactly where we were as if I'd only seen them
| yesterday.
|
| I don't use a system like this. But it's bizarre to say
| that just because someone hasn't spoken in a while that
| they don't actually matter
| terafo wrote:
| Shit happens, you might have crunch at work for some time
| and spend much less time on social activities in that
| period, which means that you loose contacts with anyone
| but close friends. It requires conscious effort to leave
| that state. And there are different types of social
| connections, there are those where not much happens for
| some time, but then in very short period of time A LOT
| happens. That is the case for some of my friends that
| don't live in my city.
| trowawee wrote:
| The thing about parsing your social network down to just
| a tiny group of close friends is A) it makes it harder to
| develop more close friends, since friendship tends to
| work like a funnel where you start out shallow and become
| better friends through time/exposure, and B) eventually
| you start to lose friends, whether to physical distance,
| falling out, life events, and eventually death, and if
| you only have a tiny group, it's easy for the bottom to
| fall out of your friend group entirely.
|
| I've watched this happen with a lot of older adults I
| know, which is one of the reasons I've deliberately made
| some efforts to keep a pool of shallow friendships. Some
| of them have already deepened into actual friends, some
| fall off and that's ok, because that's kind of the point.
| Casting a wider net is part of a strategy to not end up
| in my later years with 0-2 total friends in my life.
| [deleted]
| ggm wrote:
| Hi %famous-person% have my free %upvote-or-acknowledgement% for
| implementing a %faux-human-response%.
|
| Do I now have to do traffic analysis on my received mails to
| detect which ones have suspicious periodicity to measure my A,B
| or C-dom?
|
| D I know: its the Christmas form letter.
| kanonieer wrote:
| My immediate reaction to this: this is a form of sociopathic
| behavior.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| p_l wrote:
| Thing is, sociopathic would be if they lacked empathy for other
| person, not that they automated reminders and notes to
| regularly connect with other people (at various degrees of
| acquaintance&friendship).
|
| Do we put the same kind "yikes value" on couples that schedule
| weekly outing to cinema? If no, why not? It's essentially the
| same base mode of operation, setting up a regular reminder to
| make time for each other. Or a group of friends. Is it really
| "more genuine" just because you don't know one of them has 20
| overlapping calendar appointments with reminders in order to
| ensure that the weekly meet works out?
|
| And honestly, a lot of those reactions were downvoted to hell
| because apparently there's quite a lot of us who don't find it
| easy to "message someone on the toilet" and don't accept pithy,
| empathy impaired message that if we have issues communicating
| then we don't care.
| scatters wrote:
| Have you considered that your emotional intuition might be
| wrong? Does your "yikes radar" fire when you see people using
| mobility or sensory aids to overcome disabilities?
| slt2021 wrote:
| CRM for friendships, is it really a friendship after that or a
| customer/lead/prospect?
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