A simple system I’m using to stay in touch with hundreds of people 4 years ago
Spreadsheets can work quite well for this. I made an iOS app as side project inspired by this post from Derek Sivers.
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kaioelfke
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Hi, I am a developer, maker, traveler and volunteer.
Working on: https://amicu.app https://nomorefacebook.xyz
https://www.kaioelfke.de/ https://twitter.com/kaioelfke
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Many people have an entry in their calendar to call their parents and grandparents. It’s also about making time for people you care about instead of work and other things taking over.
Not sure about Android, but on iOS some communication apps support this. My app deep links into those.
I use my app for birthdays like that. There’s a button that opens the conversation in whatever app I use for this person (WhatsApp, Telegram, Email, …).
It’s definitely good to maintain your own contact data somewhere. People delete FB accounts and FB changes all the time. They used to have APIs for birthdays, but they’re gone. So there’s no control unless you own the data.
Is the effort knowing, when to reach out yourself instead of a tool reminding you? Or is the effort about spending time with a person?
I use a running tracker, but I still have to run myself.
And how often do people reach out on their own? Often it’s seeing a post in a feed or some other trigger. Is that more authentic?
The willingness to add a reminder and spend time shows that you care about a person.
Thank you! If you’ve feedback you can reach me at @kaioelfke on Twitter or kai@amicu.app
I made a personal CRM iOS app for myself and others. It supports these features besides special dates, which is on my road map. It’s basically a privacy and offline friendly UI around a SQLite db.
I made a simple reminder app like that. It encourages you to catch up from time to time.
Deleting Facebook 5 years ago
That’s some of the reasons why I made https://nomorefacebook.xyz/ with privacy-friendly alternatives. I hope the list gets bigger as new things emerge.
Cool, I’ll add it to https://nomorefacebook.xyz as alternative!
I wonder if, I'm next after making https://nomorefacebook.xyz but that's why it's good to export contacts and other data now and not when it's too late. And don't use it as login provider.
I do the same, but not with fixed schedules in a calendar, but slightly randomized reminders with my iOS app.
Calendar events are simple, but I like that I can snooze in my app or reach out spontaneously. It's more flexible. But before I lose touch I will get that reminder.
I made this after FB broke the promise to not merge WhatsApp data.
Feel free to submit privacy-friendly alternatives so people have a choice.
Thanks for the feedback and trying Amicu. I often talk to people to improve the UX.
Marking someone in touch means you interacted with this person somehow for example you met or called. This sets the last contact date to today. This is used for reminders to catchup after some time and sorting the contact list to see which contacts you met recently and where it's been some time.
Setting in touch and adding contacts uses a similar UI, which can be confusing in the beginning. I need to improve this. Thanks!
You can also contact me at kai@amicu.app, if you've more questions or feedback.
Monica is a nice tool, but I wanted an iOS app with great UX and privacy.
Amicu is basically SwiftUI on top of a local SQLite db. It supports tracking the last contact date, catchup reminders, birthday reminders, Siri, Shortcuts (for semi automatic workflows), and widgets. Save the main comm app per contact (WhatsApp, Telegram, FB, etc.) for batch messages like a birthday event invite.
Feedback is welcome.
Feel free to try my iOS app. You can track the frequency. It's basically SwiftUI on top of SQLite. All data stays on the device. It has support for Siri, Shortcuts and widgets. Feedback is welcome.