- It’s great that you “want to do something.” Propose the thing, and the time you want to do the thing. Otherwise, you’re basically saying “hey, I miss you!,” which is lovely, but is not the same thing as taking action to spend time with someone.
- To borrow from Tony Robbins, when you schedule it, it’s real. To paraphrase / state the obvious in inverse: until you schedule it, it’s not real. Other real things might show up, in the time you are mistakenly assuming some kind of “indefinite hold clause” exists.
- Regrettably, being hard to make plans with is like a credit score: it takes a while to improve it. Announcing your intention to improve it doesn’t improve it. Evidence, over time, improves it.
- Regrettably, being easy to make plans with does not guarantee immediate access. Everybody’s got their own timing and interests; and, frankly, priorities of people they want to invest time in. Someone might prefer to do nothing than to to offer up the last available slots in their calendar to you.
- Work to your own comfort, re: confirming plans day-of. On my end, confirming plans day-of reads as “I don’t really want to do this anymore. Do you?”
- In like kind, three to five repetitions of “are you sure you can make the time?” when setting up the plans really sounds like “I don’t actually want to do this. Do you?”
- Some people, myself included, like to know the general shape of their week as their enter it, and the specific details of their day as they start it. Be courteous.
- Doing the grunt work of organizing group activities is emotional labour, no matter how good a person is at it. That person has every right to tire of the labour, and bow out of the organizational role after a period of time.
- Respect the care that goes into scheduling. This means: sometimes, push yourself to follow the plan if there’s no real reason not to.
- Respect the fact that everyone’s a person with their own shit going on. This means: it’s okay to change or cancel plans.