Update Your Contacts
Your contacts will duplicate. The information will become obsolete and out of date.
To make sure you have accurate information for your people you need a strategy to maintain it.
Simple contact maintenance strategies
You don’t need a ridged system for contacts. An occasionally-when-it-seems-right strategy is usually good enough. Especially when you have successfully identified and connected your primary contact list. (See GAME SPACE: Connect your Contacts)
To complete this Game Space take a moment (5 minutes or 10 minutes) to go through all the contacts that start with a specific letter. (Last name works best)
Take today’s date and go to the corresponding letter in the alphabet and start there.
Example: Today is the [DATE] so start with the letter “[LETTER]”.
About the contacts in your phone
Your phone has the ability to pull in contact lists from a variety of sources.
- The phone itself.
- Your cell phone service provider may have an address list for you.
- Your connected email accounts.
- Your phones brand account (Apple account or Android account).
This can cause duplicates and conflicting contact info in a variety of complicated ways.
The previous GAME SPACE: Connect your Contacts addresses this in more detail.Figuring out which entry you should delete, or update can take some detective work.
You can edit the name and add a number to make them easier to identify while you are determining which is the “real” one.
Nicole Lux-Ritchie 1
Nicole Lux-Ritchie 2
Contact information fields
The note field is your friend. The note or description field in your contact list is largely under your control and private. You can put all kinds of reminders and information in there to help you remember things.
For more specific ideas on organizing your contacts check out the BLOG POST: Simple Contact Organizing TipsAbout the dreaded duplicates
Duplicates are so annoying!
The bad news is that there isn’t really anything you can do to safely and successfully eliminate them entirely. Gmail, Outlook and other programs that specialize in contact management often have a duplicate contact merging feature, but you will still need to monitor it.
EXAMPLE: Drew Marvin – drewmarvin42@ gmail.com and Drew Marvin – drew@ 5amcoffee.me may or may not be the same person.
Or
Marion Kile and Mary Kyle may actually be the same person = Marion Kyle, but your computer has no way of knowing that automatically unless you tell it.
The good news is that it doesn’t really matter. Having duplicates of contacts in your system doesn’t mean your system is out of control or disorganized. It means that your system is dynamic and that you are adding new contacts to your network. When duplicates do appear, take the moment to deal with them.
When you are ready to import a master list into a new system (Like a CRM, ESP, or other contact management program) you will need to take the time to vet and verify your contact information, and weeding out duplicates will be part of this process.
Resources Associated with This Game Space:
BLOG POST: Simple Contact Organizing Tips
GAME SPACE: Connect your Contacts
Good Luck,
Nicole
The Next Game Space
When you are ready for the next Game Space check-out: Choose a Task List System
Nicole Lux-Ritchie - Founder of Luxcentric
Nicole's mission is to help feminine professionals gain the technical
skills they need to grow their business and focus on their missions.
The focus of Luxcentric is on training practical strategies in the area of the core technologies.
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