Similarly I often think of my friends plus wider circle, but I‘m terribly unorganized except I make a conscious effort. That means writing things down, set reminders and so on. Love and organization of social life are orthogonal.
I really should call XY is such a common thought that fades away a second later. Even if it's someone I am really fond of. If they're not in my immediate circle, it's going to be additional work to keep that relationship alive.
Putting it on my calendar or as a reminder actually makes me reach out to that person. Win-win. If anything, this shows me _caring_ about someone. Many of these conversations with the people I have in mind often start where we left off too - no matter how many weeks or months in between - which makes me think this all is not about a lack of connection.
This reminds me of anecdotes from... Time Management for System Administrators, by Tom Limoncelli. He talks exactly about "Won't people think I don't care if I have to write it down in a diary?" and mentions how, at least in his experience when reaching for diary for everything, people actually reacted positively - the extra effort of ensuring a note was made, calendar appointment created, schedule arranged made them feel that he was willing to spend some effort on them, instead of just doing the minimum.
> I really should call XY is such a common thought that fades away a second later.
This is exactly right. I am constantly thinking of people that I should get in touch with, but never at a time that would actually be appropriate to do so. It'll be the random work-day thought that disappears by the time I'm done, or it will be sometime unreasonably late.
