Making Friends and Finding the Time to Keep Them
by Jan Yager, Ph.D.

As your life gets busier, you may discount how essential friendship is for you. However, the investment you make in friendships will be returned tenfold in your life.

We all need friends, ranging from close or best to casual ones. We especially need a few close or best friends who stick around through thick and thin, who take the time to listen, and with whom we have a shared history. Friendship should also be fun! It reduces the emotional devastation associated with job loss or dissatisfaction, divorce, or death of a spouse, parent, or sibling. Friendship also helps to reduce excessive dependency on your spouse even in the best of marriages. But friends can only be good medicine if you take the time out of your busy, demanding schedule to keep them involved in your life as you, in turn, stay involved in theirs.

20 Tips for Making, and Keeping, Friends No Matter How Busy You Are

Here are 20 tips to help you fit friendship into your active life:

1. Combine getting together with your friends with other activities, such as having lunch, travelling, going on vacation together, participating in a club, shopping, exercising, taking a class together, or going to the movies.

2. If your close or best friends want to get together, make it a priority to find the time in your hectic schedule.

3. Be genuinely interested in and concerned with your friends and what is going on in their lives.

4. Be positive and upbeat although, on occasion, it's okay to be down in the dumps and in need of some cheering up.

5. Avoid using or misusing friends.

6. Avoid using friends as nursemaids, therapists, or loan officers.

7. Listen empathetically.

8. Keep your friendship at a comfortable level of intimacy for both of you.
   

9. Keep your friends' confidences and secrets.

10. Share your knowledge and experiences with your friends.

11. Respect your friends' emotional boundaries and privacy.

12. Have the name and phone number of one or two relatives or other friends of your friends so you can find your friends even if they go on an extended vacation or move.

13. If you like yourself, others are more likely to want to spend time with you.

14. Reconnect with out-of-town friends throughout the year or at least once or twice during the year, not just at the holidays.

15. Remember your friends' birthdays - with a call, a card, a present, a visit.

16. Return the phone calls, e-mails, or letters of your friends promptly.

17. Occasionally sacrifice your time, energy, and needs for your friends.

18. Let friendshifts take place. Moving a friendship to a different level of intensity or frequency, or even letting it fade away, does not diminish what that relationship once gave you. (By the same token, you may find a casual friendship shifts into a close or best one because of a shared wish to do so or changes in circumstances for one or both of you, e.g. children going off to college and providing more free time, a divorce, widowhood, relocating nearby, and so forth.)

19. Make taking the time to celebrate your accomplishments with your close or best friends, and commemorate their achievements with you, a friendship tradition.

20. Use National New Friends, Old Friends Week, May 21st through May 27th, as an opportunity to make the time to visit your close or best friends or at least call, send a card, an e-mail, or a letter.

About the Author: Dr. Yager is the author of more than a dozen books including FRIENDSHIFTS and CREATIVE TIME MANAGEMENT FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM as well as a set of journals: FRIENDSHIP JOURNAL: Selected Quotes from Friendshifts and a Journal; BIRTHDAY BOOK; PERSONAL JOURNAL; EVERYTHING NOTEBOOK; THE TIME TO LOSE JOURNAL.

Jan and Fred met when Jan was 35 and Fred was 38. (They met through the personals. Jan placed the ad. But telling that wonderful story is a whole separate post and a story she'll gladly share another time.) Friendship was very important to Jan during her single years and even though she is fortunate enough to have a terrific marriage and to be best friends with her husband, she still makes the time for her close friends, even if sometimes, especialy with those dear friends who live far away, she has to rely on e-mails or phone calls to keep the communication going till a visit is possible.This is a revised edition of the article by Dr. Yager that appeared in Personal Excellence, based on Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives by Dr. Jan Yager (Hannacroix Creek Books, edition, revised, 1999; hardcover $31.95, paperback $22.95, available at local or on-line bookstores or directly from the publisher by calling Book Clearing House 800-431-1579). Dr. Jan Yager consults and speaks on friendship and time management: http://www.JanYager.com or http://www.JanYager.com/friendship.

This article may not be copied in any form... it is the property of Jan Yager. All reprint requests must be sent directly to Jan (e-mail: jyager@aol.com).