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12 October 2015

Addresses in your organiser


I realised the other day as I was working through the address pages in my personal size to transfer them in to my A6 size organiser. How many of these addresses do I really need to carry with me?

So in my address pages I have the persons name (obviously!) their mailing address, telephone number, may be their mobile number and their email address.

I have a lot of the contacts in my phone as well, and these are synced to my computer, but I still like to have them on paper as well....just in case!

I have a full address section in my A5 'stay at home' organiser, so do I really need to duplicate it all in my A6 organiser?

So during my afternoon walk today I started to think this through in a more rational fashion.
  1. I suppose it helps to have a back up paper copy. But I could easily copy the existing A5 pages and store them in one of our document fire safes.
  2. If I'm away from the office for more than a day how many times have I looked in the address section of my current organiser?  Answer not very often. 
  3. How many of the addresses in my organiser in the last 2 years have I needed to email, phone or post a letter to? Answer not that many. 
  4. What is my main means of contacting people these days? Is it still phone or letter or email? Answer, possibly none of those we are so tied in to messenger and iMessage these days a lot of the people I'm in regular contact with I don't their phone number or mailing address anyway. 
By the end of my walk I was starting to realise that the need for a full A-Z address section in my A6 organiser was not going to be needed... But what to replace it with? 

Firstly I need to decide who needs to go in to that section, look back at my phone records to see who I called, who I received calls from, and how many times. 

Slimming the number of pages down would also lighten the page load as well, giving me more space for other things. 

So I've set myself a task to capture the name and address details of people I'm in regular contact with and put them in to some sort of computer file so I can easily up date the few pages I will need to print out when ever the details change.

I have found a convenient of exporting my contact list on my Mac in to a CSV (comma separated value) format file which I can then open in Excel and then manage the contents of that file (delete the unwanted ones) and then do a simple mail merge in Word to create my new 'Essential Addresses' pages.

10 comments:

  1. The need for an address section is just not there anymore. I have a penpal page which just has my penpals contact details on...I don't do this alphabetically as I don't have that many and they easily fit on a single page.

    I then have a frequent numbers section. This doesn't have an address page just the numbers.

    So that's two pages. If for whatever reason I really needed someone's address and I didn't have it there is nothing to stop me asking for it again. Is it really worth carrying something you just don't have a need for anymore?

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  2. I do not keep any contacts in my Filofax, but I am seriously considering moving my contacts back to paper. It was recently impressed upon me that I know almost none of my friends' and family's telephone numbers, because I never use them. I simply find their name in my phone and hit "call".

    I am considering beginning written correspondences with my friends, as a means of keeping alive our relationships.

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    1. Hi Gemma. I too have found myself wanting to return to letter-writing. It seems a much more personal mode of communication than anything digital I can think of. Like you, I have kept my phone contact information digitally for a number of years, but al amso considering bringing it back into my Filofax.

      I've observed, however, that on the rare occasions when I write a letter, or send a note card to a friend, I almost invariably get a reply by email. or just a 'thank you' text! While it's nice to be thanked, clearly a lot of folks just don't 'get' the point!

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  3. I keep my contacts in a Flex address booklet with a back up at home. When I switch binders, I just slip it into a pocket.

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  4. Remember when there was an "F" for fax numbers too? Do Fax machines still exist now?

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    1. One of my clients still has a fax machine, circa 1965 - and they use it! Which in turn means someone else out there must have one too :) (Yes, I *know* you can send faxes from computers now...............)

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  5. Aside from the addresses of a couple of friends who have moved away I don't really have any contacts in any of my Filofaxes, it's all in my phone. Even at work I just have a few phone numbers of those who's numbers aren't in their email signature. There is then the question of what happens when technology fails me? I don't even know my other half's phone number and it's not actually written down anywhere...

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    1. Your other half's number?........My wife doesn't know her *own* number and has to ask me what it is when asked for it........

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  6. I have all my contacts in my Filofax. I have tried to move them out a couple of times (into another Filofax I kept at home), but each time I found I needed to post someone something and didn't have their address because I was at work (I work full-time). I realised I prefer having them with me. Having recently changed phones, I lost some contacts and had to ask for them again - they are all written down now!

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    Replies
    1. "Changed phone.....lost contacts......". Yep, been there, done that. Or ended up with all the contacts duplicated (I have around 350 to start off with).

      Analogue 1 Digital 0 I suspect.........

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