Question #51
“How do you maintain your relationships with friends when life is so busy?”
Dear RA,
The real answer here is, by scheduling things. Unless your friends are already part of your day-to-day life, such as if they are also coworkers and/or neighbors, you can’t rely on just organically maintaining the relationship. It will take some intention. Here are three ideas for things you can schedule to make sure that you’re continuing to spend time with your friends.
Schedule check-in texts. If you’re like me, and you think of checking in with your friends at 2am when they’re definitely asleep, schedule a text message to check-in with them at a more reasonable/less disruptive time. You can also use the scheduled text to make plans to synchronously talk to each other.
Schedule standing friend dates. I realized that I wasn’t getting a chance to spend time with one of my friends, so I pitched the idea of having a standing monthly date to make sure that we can see each other. Similarly, I have a standing weekly zoom with friends from college to make sure we see and check-in with each other. It’s much easier to reschedule something that’s already on the calendar, than to find a new time in the calendar.
Schedule friend trips/outings. I’ve heard somewhere that vacations are good for you because the anticipation of time away from your regular life helps make the drudgery of daily life more bearable. Similarly, planning a trip or outing with a friend gives you something to look forward to together, especially if you don’t live in the same immediate geographical area.
