Frequency

I'm a quality time person. I love long, deep conversations, thinking until my head hurts, and asking thoughtful questions.

In fact, I'm such a quality time person that I've often poo-pooed the quantity time folks who prefer gobs of time--shallow or deep--instead of the time concentrate I prefer. Of course, having the hubs in medical school and now residency has made me appreciate quantity time as well.

So, quality time? Absolutely worthwhile. Quantity time? Still a lesser time form in my skewed view, but valuable. But frequency of time? Had never really thought about it.

Enter my friend, Adam, who recently said, "People really underestimate how far a few phone calls a week at two minutes a piece can go for a friendship." Checking in often but briefly. So simple. I often let months go by without contacting (or hearing from) a friend and then I feel obligated to have an hour-long conversation with them so that I can catch up on a month's worth of information.  Usually, I don't have an hour, or my hour doesn't line up with their hour, so this concept of contacting people more often but less intensely really started to make sense.

But it went against everything I believed in: quality time needed time in order to go deep. How deep can you go in two minutes?

I threw (my) logic to the wind and started small by sharing with my best friend the plan to contact (call/text/email) her often but briefly. She was in. While we actually only talk about once a week,  I feel more connected to her than any other friend right now. I realized that frequency creates a sense of connection, even if it's a tiny sound byte of time. In fact, when I think about who I feel closest to at this moment, it's the people I communicate with most--not necessarily most deeply, but most often.

A couple minutes here and there also don't seem so intimidating to accomplish. I have time in the car, a minute while I unload the dishwasher, a few moments while I'm eating lunch to send a text. It's made me think about others more, about how my time can be shared with them, which is a pretty quality thing if you ask me.