How to build a simple system that can maintain a reasonable connection with people
Increasing acquaintances is one of the few ways you can make your life 'luckier' with less effort and greater returns. However, it is quite difficult to keep an acquaintance as an acquaintance, and it can become estranged before you know it. Entrepreneur Jacob Greenfeld has blogged about a system for maintaining acquaintances and increasing new acquaintances.
The simple system I'm using to stay in touch with hundreds of people – Jakob Greenfeld – Experiments in Entrepreneurship and Learning
Jacob first thought of practicing the following method described in the book 'Your Music and People' .
1: Classify people you have met so far into A to D
| Classification | importance | Contact frequency |
|---|---|---|
| A | Very important | Every 3 weeks |
| B | important | Every two months |
| C | usually | Every 6 months |
| D | It does not matter | Once a year |
2: Try to get in touch according to frequency
However, focus on 'listening to what's happening' rather than sending selfish messages.
However, although this method seems simple at first glance, it was difficult to continue to practice it. So, Jacob decided to use Airtable , a database app, to build a mechanism to automatically list 'who should be contacted today'.
First, Jacob prepared a table with contact information. This table is made up of 7 columns, from left to right: 'Name', 'Contact Information', 'Notes', 'Category', 'Last Contact Date', 'Next Contact Date', and 'Trigger Reminder'.
The first three are simple text columns, with categories A to D. By entering the date of the last contact on the last contact date, the next contact date is automatically determined from the category. When the next contact date comes, a character string will be entered in the trigger reminder.
By setting Airtable's automation script as shown below, people with trigger reminders turned on will be listed and delivered by email every morning at 6 o'clock. In addition to existing acquaintances, Jacob created a table that lists 'people who want to meet new people', and one person's name is randomly distributed from among them every day.
Mr. Jacob seems to spend about 15 minutes every morning after sending a message according to the email sent, updating the last contact date of Airtable to that date.
'What to write' is also important when sending a message. Jacob says he may check the person's profile or website to keep up with what's happening and ask his thoughts and questions, or just ask him what he's been doing lately. No matter what message you send, the most important thing is to make it short, honest and useful, and make it a message that the other person wants to receive so that you do not feel any purpose other than 'contact'.
All the script code that Jacob set in Airtable is described in Jacob's blog , so if you want to make the same system yourself, please refer to it.
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