A creative way to manage your friendships
November 26th, 2009 Chip Joyce - Staff ContributorCategories | Community Contributions
Personal relationships are among my GTD Areas of Focus and Responsibility. I maintain a list of all persons with whom I have friendly relations. I informally call it my “friends list” even though I think it would be too presumptuous to call all of these people friends: There are well over 300 people on it right now. It is a work-in-progress and whenever someone pops into my consciousness and I am unsure whether he or she is on my list, I make a note on my ubiquitous capture tool and add them to the list later.
Each of my “friends” fit into one of these categories. Note that I do not consider a romantic partner, or children if I had them, to be friends. Similarly, if you have a singular “best friend” that person need not be on the list. These persons are not comparable to others and are each their own category.
- Closest and current friends. These are my dearest friends and are, fortunately, a current and regular part of my life. Contrast with Category 2
- Closest but not-current friends. I value these friends equally to Category 1 friends but life circumstances have deprived me of enjoying them as I wish. The main reason is that they live far away. I know that if circumstances improved they would be Category 1.
- Forever-friends. I want these people to be friends for life, but they do not have the same level of value-sharing as I do with Category 1 & 2 friends. Many of these friends are from various schools, my childhood, etc. Some of them were Category 1/2 friends but we grew apart. Many relatives might be in this category, as well.
- Current acquaintances. I know these people and like them, but my interaction is very context-specific. If that context changed the relationship would likely end. Examples are neighbors, some co-workers, work-out partners or sports team members, and service people like your local butcher, bartender, storekeepers, hair stylists, etc.
- Not-current acquaintances. These are people I know and like, but they are not actively in my life and presently I do not expect to do anything to change that. Whenever I run in to them, I am glad to see them. Examples would be people I see if I happen to visit their towns (or vice versa), or see them at a party of mutual friends. However, I do try to reach out via email or calls on occasion.
These categories, as you can imagine, form a pyramid: Categories 4 & 5 are massive; 2 & 3 are greatly diminished in size, and 1 is very small.
This list is practical for when you need to send Christmas cards, announcements, etc. But the really important reasons to do this are:
- By categorizing your friends, you can then allocate your time and resources to your friends in proportion to their level of importance. Recently I told a Category 2 friend how much he matters to me, and I deeply regret the deeply between us but I have the highest esteem and affection. That made me feel good, and I think it made him feel good too.
- It helps you to evaluate your friendships objectively rather than emotionally. For example, I felt very bad for years for not keeping in touch with my childhood best friend. Through categorizing him, I realized my emotions for him were misplaced: he was not a Category 2 friend any more. At best he is a Category 3. While that caused sadness to me, because I realized we were no longer close, my emotions readjusted and now I am content with this fact.
- It is dynamic. If you have time for more friendships, you can look to promoting someone one by engaging with them more. If you are too busy, you can reduce the amount of time you are spending with Category 3, for example.
- It triggers action: review the list and do something for friends you have not contacted in a while. A phone call, email, ordering a gift, etc., may be all you can do.
Finally, if you have trouble deciding where a person fits — say, a Category 2 or 3, or a 3 or 4, consider how they relate in importance to people in those categories. This is how I re-categorized my childhood best friend: I had to be honest with myself and recognize he did not hold the same status to me as did the others in Category 2.
Try it and let me know what you learned.
Chip Joyce is a business development expert, regular community contributor to GTD Times and member of GTD Connect. You might enjoy his other posts too. You can also reach him by email.
I like categorizing things. I have all of my books in the Delicious Library program on my Mac. I tag all of my photos and sort all my email into folders. I don’t know if I’m ready to do that with my friends, though. While I do have some friends that are closer than others, I don’t think I want to spend my time rating them and putting them into pigeonholes. I don’t want to think of my friends as numbers and prefer my relationships to be more fluid.
According to Aristotle, there are three types of friendship: friendship based on usefulness (a friend for a reason), friendship based on pleasure (a friend for a season), and friendship based on virtue (a friend for life). Friendships based on usefulness and pleasure only last as the long as each party derives the usefulness or pleasure he desires from the relationship. Sadly, people mistake these for virtuous friendships, only to find out too late that they are not. Friendship based on virtue is based on wishing the good for the other person. This is a true and lasting friendship, necessary for self-knowledge and helps both of the friends to grow in virtue. This kind of friendship presupposes justice and goes beyond it. The virtue of a friend is to love. The reality is that we will be fortunate indeed to have even a handful of friendships based on virtue in our lives.
Once we recognize the handful of true, virtuous friendships in our lives, deciding how to set our priorities and where to spend our time becomes much clearer indeed.
You raise an interesting point – recently I’ve noticed that for every social “circle” that most people are in, you have about 3 close friends, 10 “colleagues” and the rest are familiar to you but not really “known”.
Somehow I could see this idea becoming some sort of facebook app!
Interesting post. It reminds me a bit of my post on looking at the people in your life who make up your Dunbar number.
http://www.mctoonish.com/blog/?p=486
Chip,
I think your categories of friendship are useful conceptually, but I’m not sure one should use “friendship” and “management” in the same sentence. Perhaps your matrix can be used to “keep track of” or “follow” your friends, or to “enhance” or even to “organize” your friend “contacts,” but “manage” suggests control and hierarchy, and mostly in business. Even in public agencies, schools, hospitals, and similar not-for-profit organizations, the word “management” is eschewed in favor “administration.” But even in the business world, one sometimes hears that you “manage” machines, but you “lead” people. I think the distinction is worth maintaining.
Best,
Todd Carney
Hi, everyone, I want to respond to each of you in one message.
To Beirne: I think a standard objection other people have to GTD is that they want things to be “more fluid.” As I am sure you have learned, nothing makes you more fluid than to have GTD skills. Just as GTD has made me better on all fronts, it’s helped me to be a better friend and to be a better judge of the time and resources I allocate to people.
To FrRalphZ: Thanks for the Aristotle reference. As a classics and philosophy student, and admirer of Aristotle, his writings on friendship were an influence in my thinking about this topic.
To Ed: It’s important to be objective in evaluating how important persons are in your life. I like the FaceBook idea a lot.
To Todd: I manage my life, and part of that is that I’ve learned to manage the time, emotional energy, and others resources I devote to people. Personally, I don’t have a problem with the word “manage” but if you like the idea but not that word, re-name it for yourself.
Thanks to all for writing.
I definitely get the resistance to managing friendships, but I actually found these categories to be incredibly logical and intuitive. Makes so much sense I just went and set up a new AOF for myself.
I never thought about my freindships in this way but I could relate very well to your categories. I could also relate to the conflict that I have felt about not putting time and effort into maintaining contact with friends who once were close. This helped me understand my feelings and behavior. I don’t think of this article as a suggestion to consider as much as insight into what is already true and becoming comfortable with how to deal with it.
Ira,
Thanks for that comment.
>>I don’t think of this article as a suggestion to consider as much as insight into what is already true and becoming comfortable with how to deal with it.
I learned from this observation of yours.
Chip