SIT Time

I stated earlier that my mission for 2009 is to stay in touch (or in most cases – get BACK in touch) with people. One thing I learned from Tom Hausmann at this past Tuesday’s Manager Meet Up was to set aside time in my schedule to make that happen. Like most things (exercise, the GTD weekly review, annual objectives) it is more likely to happen if you schedule time for it.

To that end I created a block of time each week to sit down and keep in touch with people. Setting up the appointment was the easy part. Putting together the took a bit longer. I started by going through my Outlook contacts. Let me warn you that I’ve got about 15 years of contacts and I rarely clean it out. There are high school friends, tech support numbers, family, my wife’s friends, and some that I have no recollection of in that list. With the objective to strengthen my network, I picked about 75. Now I need to go through my LinkedIn list and my Facebook list and see if there are any other potential list members there.

When the block of time rolls around, I’ll take 10 or so people, send them an email and just see how they are doing, wish them well, and cycle around. Some may no longer be “out there” and I expect some will start longer conversations. The point is, it wouldn’t have happened if Tom hadn’t suggested it and I blocked off time.

I highly recommend you try it too. How many times have you said to yourself “I should really call so-and-so.” or “I wonder what my old college buddy is up to?” Make the investment (and it is an investment that pays off big time) and leverage the technology. You’ll be glad you did.