# Keep in Touch

> The people you love, each on a rhythm, so a simple tool tells you who you are overdue to reach out to. · **Payoff:** Closeness · **Setup:** about 10 minutes, once

This is the flagship skill, and the one almost everyone neglects. Relationships rarely fade because you stopped caring. They fade because nobody was in charge of the *rhythm*, and weeks quietly become years. This skill puts something small in charge of the rhythm, so caring is enough.

**Why it's worth it.** You already sense that some people belong in your life weekly, some monthly, some once a year, and that is right for them. The problem was never the feeling. It is that "I should reach out" has no trigger, so it never fires. Give each person a rhythm and let a tool watch the clock, and you stop scanning your whole life wondering who you have neglected.

**The setup (once).**
1. Open the [Keep in Touch tool](../tool/index.html). It runs in any browser, works offline, and saves nothing to any server. This is a private rhythm, not a social network.
2. Add the people you keep meaning to reach and losing track of. Start with ten, not a hundred.
3. Give each a rhythm that feels *generous, not guilt-inducing* — the one you would be glad to keep, not the one you think you "should."
4. Once a week, open the tool, see who is overdue, send one message, mark them done. That is the whole maintenance.

**Where AI earns its place (and where it doesn't).** The reason keeping in touch feels like a chore is the blank page: "hey, long time, how are you." AI is genuinely useful for beating that blank page. Keep a note of what someone is going through and ask for a warm, specific opener ("draft a short, low-pressure check-in about his mom's surgery"). It is good at turning a fact you already know into a first line. Where it does not belong: deciding who matters, or auto-sending anything. A four-line message you actually wrote beats a polished one you didn't. The tool times the reach-out; you do the reaching.

**Keep it small.** On a bad week, the whole skill shrinks to: open the tool, message the single most-overdue person, done. "Text one person on Sunday" beats "reconnect with everyone." Showing up small and often is the entire secret, and it is a skill, not a personality trait.

## Reach out *about something*
Systematize the *reason*, not just the reminder:
- **Do a thing together, apart.** Send a puzzle, a crossword, a daily word game, and compare times. A standing "who got today's faster" thread keeps a friendship warm with zero small talk.
- **The forward.** Keep a mental note of who loves what. See a thing they'd love and it becomes the message. No "how are you" required.
- **The specific callback.** "You mentioned your mom's surgery — how did it go?" beats "how's life" every time. Jot the specific thing when you hear it.
- **The standing date.** The strongest version of all: a recurring thing on the calendar (monthly call, a walk, game night) so there is nothing to initiate.

---
Next: [Start with one skill](start-with-one.md), or browse [all skills](README.md). Open the [Keep in Touch tool](../tool/index.html) and add three people right now.