If you are anything like me, you will have at least one drawer or box full of things you were sure you would need again one day …. Okay, so I have two drawers like this, and at least three boxes of absolutely-had-to-keep items. In the likely event of some global disaster or simply that it might somehow be useful 20 years from now.
In the middle of my collection of power supplies and cables, toys from my youth (all classics I assure you 😊), a lot of assorted Harley memorabilia, old photos and birthday cards, enough car cleaning kit and tools to last til the next millennium, coins with no value, and moldy books, I have boxes and boxes of business cards. I don’t think I have ever thrown out one business card that was given to me since I started work just after the dinosaurs died out.
Each business card was a personal statement from someone that I had met, and many had my handwritten notes on them to remind me who they were and why we were speaking. Even in business today, the second thing we reach for when meeting someone new is our business card, after reaching out to shake hands. I have scanned most of these cards now, and they sit within my Outlook contacts – some 4,000 names although I have lost probably 4,000 more over the years. So, now I hoard Outlook contacts, not so much business cards – again with notes to tell me who they were and why we were speaking.
I have to say I miss the simplicity of having boxes of business cards – sitting there flipping through them and coming across a beautifully presented card with a smiling photo or simply someone I had lost contact with many years ago. Can’t do that so much with Outlook contacts – well you can but you lose something in the tactile approach of flipping business cards in my opinion.
Sometimes I do a major clean out, throw away most of the essentials I have hoarded, and then (Murphy’s Law) I magically find a use for something I had just thrown away! Always the way. But with the contact details I continue to gather and keep in Outlook, I do still trawl through them from time to time. And then I reach out to somehow to see how they are doing, are they still at the same place, and how the kids and the dog have grown. And surprisingly most (but not all) of the time, people are happy to hear from me!
I will keep hoarding contacts in Outlook and reaching out to old friends and colleagues as often as I can. It’s a great way to brighten my day actually. Sadly, I am very sure I will also continue to collect the absolutely essential junk that I do in drawers and boxes in preparation for the next extinction level event or just because I can.
