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When was the last time you cleaned out your digital contacts? Have you ever cleaned it out? The process is the same whether you use Google or Apple’s iCloud Contacts. In this episode, you’ll get some tips on how to switch contacts managers, including how to use Google Contacts on an iPhone, and steps for cleaning out your contacts.
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Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
Join the Retreat Notification Email List
Friday Finds #168 – Clean Up What? Your Contacts!
Use Google Contacts Like a Pro (dottotech)
Trader Joe’s Crunchy Chili Onion
Chili Onion Crunch Grilled Cheese
Transcript
Welcome to episode 124 of the Piano Pantry Podcast. I’m Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher with a proclivity for organization. My brain is especially focused on digital organization right now, as tomorrow, I’ll be welcoming six special teachers into my home for the 5th Piano Pantry digital organization retreat. Over the next three days, I’ll be by their side, walking them through a progressive process of organizing their digital life. We also have a lot of fun just hanging out with other teachers and unwinding from the year.
If you would like to get in on this sometime, be sure to join the email notification list at PianoPantry.com/retreatnotify
With digital organization on the brain, today’s episode is a little digital organization challenge—one I think you’ll find very easy to tackle on your own, and that’s to spend some time cleaning up your digital contacts.
It’s summertime, and I want to keep things short and sweet today, so let’s get to it. Be sure to stay tuned to the very end as I have a fun little food recommendation to share that would be great for your lunch!
Whether you use Google Contacts or Apple Contacts, you can go through some of the same processes in this little cleanup.
Personally, I love all things Google, and even though I use an iPhone, maybe five or six years ago, I decided to move out of Apple Contacts and into Google. If you’re a Mac user, it makes sense to just stick with the native contacts app, but if you’re a PC person like I am, I think Google makes more sense.
You can access your Google contacts by either navigating through the Google apps launchpad on Google.com or just typing in contacts.google.com
If you want to switch from Apple Contacts to Google or vice versa, you’ll want to start by exporting all your contacts to a CSV or vCard file. From there, you can use the Import feature to upload all your contacts into the new program.
The thing that can be a little confusing at first if you are using Google Contacts is that there isn’t a dedicated Google Contacts app available on devices like there is everything else on Google. There are dedicated apps for Google Chrome, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Meet, Google Photos, Google Chat, or Google 1, but not for Google Contacts.
On iPhones, you will just use the native Contacts app—which is Apple’s contacts app—to view your Google Contacts. You’ll need to go into the Contacts app settings, add your Google Account under “Accounts”, and toggle on the “Contacts” setting. Once you’re sure your contacts are all in Google – and you can know that by visiting Contacts.Google.com and seeing if the number of contacts in your Google account matches your iCloud account – you can then toggle off the iCloud contacts account on your contacts app.
Once I was certain all my contacts were uploaded to Contacts.google.com, I completely deleted them from iCloud, so I didn’t have to worry about them being saved in two locations.
The first cleanup step I would then recommend is to utilize the cleanup features in your contacts program. Both Google and Apple iCloud contacts will recognize duplicates and walk you through the process of merging information into one contact. It’s a pretty clear-cut and seamless process. In Google, it’s in the left sidebar and is called “Merge and Fix.”
This happens sometimes because, for example, you might have saved the same person’s phone number in one contact and their email in another without realizing they were the same person. Another scenario might be that you saved someone’s phone number but not their email. Google will notice if they see an email address communication from them that it might be the email address for that person and that you could then add it to their contact. It’s pretty slick.
The second cleanup step I wouldn’t do until you’ve gone through the merge process and that’s to delete contacts that you have no reason to keep anymore. This will require more manual work on your part, but it is pretty easy. Just start scrolling through your contacts. I found old contacts such as those from students I had 12 years ago when I taught in another location, people who had passed away, and even contacts I couldn’t even remember who they were.
This is digital clutter. When I first went through my contacts cleanup process, I started with 1,150 contacts and ended with 450 – a 60% reduction!
Speaking of digital clutter – if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, just a few weeks ago in episode 121, we talked about purging “idea” clutter. It’s one area – like contacts – that I think we don’t ever think to clean up. It’s easy to consider cleaning up our email or documents folders, but when was the last time you cleaned out your digital contacts or plethora of saved teaching “ideas”?
The last bit of advice I have today is not one for cleaning up contacts necessarily but is one that can help you be more efficient and that’s to utilize groups or labels in your contacts. I mostly just do this for my studio. Adding labels to contacts will allow you to be able to easily add multiple people to an email without having to add their emails individually.
All my studio families are under a label called “Studio 88,” so when I go to email everyone, I just start typing “Studio 88,” and it will auto-populate all their emails into the BCC area.
Quite side note here… don’t use the main TO: or CC: functions when sending group emails to your studio—most of the time, it’s more appropriate to use BCC to avoid families getting replies from others.
So – good luck! I hope you feel a bit of relief in getting your contacts cleaned up. Stay tuned for one fun little fun thing here in our outro.
As always, a special kudos to all my friends on Patreon including Sarah, Valerie, and Mary for helping make this podcast ad-free and for showing your value for this work. You’re my peeps!
Don’t forget – if you think you might be interested in the digital organization retreat someday to join the first notification list at PianoPantry.com/retreatnotify
It’s been a while since I shared a tiny tip, so today, I wanted to share a little fun discovery that will make a yummy lunch meal.
Up the game of your grilled cheese or cheese toasty sandwiches—whatever you call them—by adding a light spread on the bread of chili crisp. Chili crisp eggs have been a popular thing recently, and we have been using them in so many ways—shushed up grilled cheese is just the latest revelation. Trader Joe’s has a similar thing called Crunchy Chili Onion that would also work well here. If you enjoy a little spice in your food you will definitely love this!
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Stay tuned for next week, in episode 125 where I’ll be chatting with teachers who attended the retreat. Have a lovely week!
