Cleaning up your IM contact lists
A while earlier, I did what I should have done ages ago. I cleaned up my Pidgin contact list - which was a big deal for me because I had over 75 people on it and I knocked it down to around 40. It made me realise how easy it is to accumulate contacts and how important it is to prune these contact lists on a regular basis, especially if you use a multi-protocol client such as Pidgin or Trillian - more networks, more contacts, more clutter.
It seems that no matter what I do, my contact list on IM grows. When a new story comes out on Make Use Of or Geeks Are Sexy, people get in touch. Which is fine. I don’t begrudge talking to readers. I like networking and I like talking to the people who essentially keep me in business. Authors accept that it is part and parcel of writing to correspond with readers. But it becomes a tough job keeping on top of my IM lists (and email for that matter) and if you don’t have a system in place to maintain order, you will quickly find things spiralling out of control.
So today I arranged my Pidgin list into specific groups in the following order. You may want to do something similar :
MAKE USE OF (all my colleagues on Make Use Of)
OTHER BUSINESS CONTACTS
FAMILY
PERSONAL FRIENDS
CONTACTS (everyone else whom I meet online who don’t fit in one of the other categories)
Then I took a long hard look at each person and asked myself “who is this person? when was the last time I talked to them? did I contact them or did they contact me? what benefit is there to me to keep them on my list?”. Answering these questions to myself, I was able to remove over 30 people. Including some rather rude people who thought my sole existence in life was to digg their articles for them and do nothing for me in return.
I’ve often found that a lot of internet users “collect” IM contacts, as if it’s a badge of honour to have so many “friends”. Well you know what? They’re not your “friend”. They’re just someone you know at the other end of an internet cable. You’re never likely to meet them, they’re never likely to do anything for you. So unless you see some potential in continuing the discussion, remove them from the IM list and do yourself a favour. Trust me, you won’t miss them and your life won’t be any worse off.
Now I’m off to prune Facebook. Pass me the shears.
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