I have been taking an informal poll for a while to see how everyone keeps track of their contacts, business cards, clients, auto and household repairs, numbers and passwords.
So many people forget to record a name or number so when they get a call back from a client, they need to make a repair or find the person, it’s such a struggle to retrieve the information.
In this society of hacking, we do all have to be super careful with passwords and accounts, so I do recommend a password manager like Dashlane or Last pass to keeponline IDs and passwords secure.
If you really want to stay old school with your important data then keep the listing of everything at home in a safe place, but if you need anything while you are out or traveling you have to go home first. You could repeatedly say you forgot your password and update as you go along too.
Many of my clients collect business cards at meetings, on trips or just throughout their days. I see many bagfuls and at this point it has become a big project to figure out what you will actually still need and what you will really use again. Some say they use Camcard, but this still requires you going to the app and taking a photo etc.
Why not just either make these numbers and names into your contacts as you go or if this is not possible then gather this pile and visit it weekly or at least monthly. What I mean is to go through these notes, scraps, cards and save the ones you will “realistically “ use again on your phone with name, business name, number, and email. Under the note area put a small reminder of why and what they do. Then let the rest go.
Now you will always have this with you and you can quickly update them as needed.
They say “the devil is in the details” and maybe this is true, but in the long run you will save time and feel less stressed.
Why is it a good reason to update your contacts? Because Benjamin Franklin said a long time ago that “for every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned”
Have an organized Spring!