Make a list of people who you feel happy with, or motivated, or inspired. Keep them close.

Make a list of people who bring you down, who add no value to your life, who probably just your waste your time. Keep away from them if you can.  ( I read about this idea on a blog somewhere which I am not able to find now…) 

And I also learnt about using tools to keep your network in touch from my mentor of mine.

So this is what I have been doing (for the last year or so)

• I have a google spreadsheet in which I have a single list of people who motivate me, make me happy, inspire me. (Its about 80 people right now)
• Against each name I have a date when I last met / talked to him or her.
• And there is a third column – status. If the date of the last conversation has passed more than 6 months – the status turns red. If its between 3 and 6 months it turns yellow and if its less than 3 months – it shows up in green.  (you can easily setup a conditional format to do this coloring)

Now all I need to do is to open this sheet once every week or two and make a few phone calls / meet my friends (who are in red / yellow status). I can open it my iPad / phone given that its on Google drive

This way I keep my motivation high  and keep in touch with my motivators. I am not perfect at this, but I try my best 🙂

Do share your thoughts.