Capture Your Contacts
Back to the GAME PAGE
Don’t think, Just do!
Pick one or do both!
- Take a look at the contacts in your phone, scroll to the first duplicate and start organizing.
- Go to the contact list in your email and go through the export process so you have a backup.
GUIDE VIDEO: Join me as we work on this Game Challenge together.
Simple Setup for this Game Challenge
Choose your primary email contact list and make sure to capture your contacts in your phone.
- Spend about 20 minutes or so clearing duplicates and updating old email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses.
- Notice the different categories of people you have in your list when you capture your contacts and use the labels or tags of your system to create a couple of lists to keep your people organized.
- Create a label or tag called Verified [YEAR] and label the ones you know are up to date
Join the Lux Lab and we can work on this together with friends.
When you join the Lux Lab you get to work on your current digital office backend issues while having tech support and group energy available for troubleshooting, brainstorming, and general productivity solutions.
Join the Lux Lab (Group Session)
- Get feedback on that crazy thing your computer is doing.
- Conquer your email inbox
- Organize your digital files
- Untangle your passwords.
- And more Rescue your Digital Office challenges.
View the LUX LAB Schedule
With your registration, you will also receive the regular Tech E-Rescue email dispatch which offers challenges and guidance toward rescuing your digital office.
You can unsubscribe anytime.
Deeper work and Strategy for this Game Challenge
The best possible situation would be for you to have immediate access to accurate and updated information on anyone you wish to capture your contacts from wherever you are. Unfortunately, we don’t have a perfect solution. Our people move, change their phone numbers, and email addresses, change names, and so on. You will need to monitor and update those changes regularly. Your smartphone and primary email account can give you the best shot at maintaining a clean contact list.
STEP 1: Choose your Contact Master List.
Look at your primary email account first. It is usually the best option for your master contact list. Your email account has a contact list that allows you to input phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, business addresses, websites, and many other little details you may want, including a generous notes field you can use to keep track of things you need to know about the individual.
If you are using Gmail or Outlook, your contact organizing is simplified. Both these systems have simple ways to view and capture your people. Both systems also have extensive integration relationships. (Integrations are useful when you want two systems to communicate with each other without a lot of manual work for you.)
STEP 2: Make Sure your Primary Email Account is Connected to your Phone
In the Blog Post: Do You Know Where Your Contacts Are? I’ve described where you can access your contact list in your email account and how to link to your smartphone.
In your phone settings, under contacts or accounts, you should be able to see which email accounts are set up on your phone and if your phone is accessing the people of these accounts. Once you have your people connected in this way you will be able to keep them up to date no matter where you are.
Contacts on iPhone
The iPhone allows you to set a “default” account to save new people. Make sure it is set to the email account you have designated as your primary account.
NOTE: Currently the only way you can see which individuals are in which account is by process of elimination. You can go into your settings and turn off contacts in all but one account to see who is connected to that account. Yes, it is a super clumsy way to do it and I hope it changes soon.
Contacts on Android
For Android, your phone will save your new individual to the same account that you’ve saved a person to previously. So once you save someone to your preferred account you should be set.
Note: When you edit a contact entry you can see which account it is saved to and if needed save it to a different account.
Step 3: Test your Connection
To test your connections, save a contact in your phone and then go check your email contacts, then capture a contact in your email and check your phone contacts. It may take a minute or two for the information sync so don’t panic if it doesn’t update right away. Both devices will need to be connected to cell service or the internet for it to work.
Anywhere you go you can capture contact information and have it automatically updated to many of your other systems for use in a variety of situations.
Simple Contact Maintenance Strategies
You don’t need a rigid system to capture people. And occasionally when it seems right, the following strategy is usually good enough. Especially when you have successfully identified and connected your primary contact list.
Take a moment (5 minutes or 10 minutes) to go through all the contacts that start with a specific letter.
Use today’s date and go to the corresponding letter in the alphabet and start there.
Example: Today is the [DAY OF THE MONTH] so start with the letter [LETTER].
You can use this image as a reference.
Contact Back up
Your contact list is one of your most important assets. Your ability to capture and keep track of your people and maintain an accurate and up-to-date list will determine your success in many areas of your life. Let’s do what we can to protect it. To create a backup of your contacts simply export them from your email contact list and save the file in a folder on your computer labeled Backups. Make sure you add the date to the name of the file so you know how old the data is. I tend to do mine every holiday season when I prepare addresses for sending cards. For more information on Exporting and Importing contact files check out the Blog Post: Export your People to Safety
Resources Associated with this Game Challenge:
Check out our Blog Post: Do You Know Where Your Contacts Are?
Blog Post: Simple Contact Organizing Tips
Blog Post: Export your People to Safety
Overwhelmed by your chaotic computer situation?
I invite you to schedule a 30-minute Topic Tackle session with me to tackle your digital office.
During this 30-minute screen-sharing session; we will chat about your computer situation and then, together we will get to work improving your digital situation.
Type CARE TACKLE into the topic code field and get a name-your-price* session.
*price recommendation $15-$65 - paid after session
