🗓 30 DAY PROJECT #2: 📞 Phone a friend

Hello - February is (finally) over which means only one thing: the end of another 30 DAY PROJECT.

This is a monthly series where I - a human guinea pig - try a recommendation from the world of self-improvement, happiness and productivity to figure out if it’s really all that.

Here’s how February went - and don’t forget to subscribe (one click)!

📞 WHAT: Phone a friend

I was inspired recently by this article about intentionally making friends and maintaining relationships for my February project. Particularly this bit:

But, not everybody is good at the keeping in touch part:

So it makes sense to take the initiative and be the staying in touch person. So, with this in mind, I decided that I would try and call a friend or relative every day in February.

🤔 Why is this habit recommended?

In my a recent post, I talked about the following regret of the dying: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

The truth is, life can get busy and friendships and family relationships can be deprioritised while job interviews, marathon training and early nights take priority.

But if we really are the sum of our 5 closest people, clearly these relationships affect us as people and are worth cultivating and paying close attention to.

There are only so many days in the week to meet with people, so a phone call is an easy, frictionless way to stay in touch and put some effort into a relationship.

💭 HOW did it go?

There’s 2 answers to this question. The first is to do with the actual staying in touch side of things - was it effective, did I enjoy it, did it work? The second element is the practical side - the scheduling, the trying to get hold of people, the keeping up with this new daily habit.

Let’s start with the former: did it work?

Without doubt.

Though strange in the first few moments, surprising a friend or family member to catch up over the phone is a great gesture and was always taken well. The actual catching up was great too - I found that the conversation I was having quickly got to the point and I always really felt like we were making great use of the time rather then exchanging small talk.

These catch up calls gave me a chance to talk about upcoming plans, work things, life problems. Anything and everything, and I was always able to return the favour.

I also found these calls were great with getting the actual catching up out of the way before meeting somebody in person, meaning we could talk about other things aside from the usual work complaints.

When it comes to the actual calling element, it was definitely more effort than I expected.

In 2023, you can’t usually call someone out of the blue and expect an answer. On one particular day as I was walking somewhere, I tried to call 7 different people with no answer.

This is fine if you schedule in advance, but it does make the whole casual catch up thing require a bit more mental involvement.

The daily call element was tough, too. I am sure this will be a recurring theme in this email - trying to keep up with a habit daily - but finding the time (and on some days, remembering) to call somebody was quite inconsistent. In total, I had 9 actual catch up calls - just over 2 a week - which I actually think is a reasonable number to take forward.

So all in all: it was a great opportunity to keep in touch with people more than I’d usually be able to, though difficult to sometimes organise and keep up with.

✅ WOULD I recommend? YES

I would definitely recommend calling friends and family more often. Specifically: pre-organising catch up calls with people. Get them in the diary to make sure you are both free, as this will make sure you both carve out some time for the call.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a daily habit unless you do feel isolated or distant from your closest relationships. I always like to think you are always only one good conversation from feeling better when you’re feeling low.

Here’s 4 ways to make the most of daily / more frequent calls:

• Set a date and time

• Make the point that you are calling for X amount of mins so the recipient knows what they are committing too and can provide the time

• Spontaneous calls are quite weird now so make sure you know how you’re going to say that you are just calling for a catch up

• Before a social event with a lot of people, good to pre catch up with a few so you don’t spend the first hour repeating the same story

This is the first in my new series of 30 DAY PROJECTS.

If you have a recommendation or something I should try, let me know by replying to this email!

Thanks!

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