How do you manage your contacts / rolodex?

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Ankesh

So - if you have a system of maintaining a rolodex file - can you share it with us? What softwares do you use to file the info? What things about every contact do you store besides name / phone / address / email? How do you keep in touch with folks? Do you publish a newsletter / send out postcards etc?

Hi Ankesh,

I think my system is too primitive... and I might try out something new and different in the upcoming future...

Nevertheless...

I just use Excel! Across the top I have different columns, with headings like...

Name (of the contact person). Of course, this is the person's name.

Last contact (R=regular contact). I try to keep track of when I last was in contact with someone. People who I am in contact regularly (e.g. daily or weekly), I just put "R". The idea with tracking this is I can see when I last was in contact with someone, and can see when I should get back in touch. (I got the idea from my brother Thomas, who as you can see from his email, has a more sophisticated system which I will probably try out myself too. ) Admittedly, I'm not as good as updating this column as I should be...

Email 1, Email 2, Email 3. 3 columns for different email addresses. If I only have one email address, I leave the next two columns blank.

Phone. Their phone number(s).

Group. I have abbreviations for different groups people are in, and people can be in more than one group. For example, "F" = "Family" - this means my relatives. "A" = "Amigo" (i.e. "friend" in Spanish) - people who are social friends. I use the "A" for "Amigo" instead of "F" for "Friend" because "F" was already taken for "Family". "B" = "Business" - that is, a business contact. "P" = "Physics" - that is, people who I know from my past as a physicist. Of course, people can be in multiple categories, then I just use two letters, separated by a comma.

Notes. These are additional notes I may add. For example, notes about their family (like their spouse's name, for example), their website(s), where I know them from or who I met them through, their profession or business details, and generally any more details I know about which seem useful or relevant.

Anyway, it's quite primitive, and it's about time I did better. But I thought I'd share it in case it helps give you ideas...

Best wishes,

Dien