10 tips to make time
for your friends

From Women's Consumer Network

Between juggling the demands of work, home and family, do you find you have very little time to chat with your best friend on the phone, catch up with former colleagues over lunch or meet the "girls" for coffee every once in a while? In short, are you so busy that you have little or no time for friends?

A lot of women find themselves in the same situation at various points in their lives. The solution is to be innovative about finding ways to cultivate and maintain friendships in spite of your hectic life.

"You can't look at friendship as something that's expendable. It's not an add-on or a luxury or a selfish indulgence," says Ann Hibbard, a professional speaker and author of Treasured Friends: Finding and Keeping True Friendships (Baker Books, 1997). "You absolutely have to have friendship in your life. It's crucial to physical health, as well as psychological well-being."

"When your schedule gets full, it's too easy to take for granted the people closest to you; you assume they will understand," adds Cheryl Richardson, a personal coach and author of Take Time for Your Life: A Personal Coach's Seven-Step Program for Creating Life the Way You Want (Broadway Books, 1998). "But everyone has their limits, and putting a friendship on hold while you're busy doing something else, especially doing it time and time again, takes its toll and can eventually damage the friendship."

That's why Jan Yager, a sociologist and author of Friendshifts — The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes Our Lives (Hannacroix Creek Books, 1997) believes, "You have to get away from the idea of 'finding time for friends.' The busier you are, the less time you have for friends. So, you just have to make the time."

Here are some ways to make that time:

Combine must-do activities with friendship time. Instead of walking the dog, working out at the health club, shopping for groceries or going to the hairdresser by yourself, make plans to do the activity with a friend. It makes the must-do activity more enjoyable and keeps you and your friend in contact on a regular basis.

Meet at untraditional times. Maybe dinners after work and marathon lunches on Saturday don't work anymore, given all your obligations. But how about getting together for dessert and coffee at 9 p.m. after the kids are in bed? Or how about breakfast early Sunday morning when everyone else is sleeping in? The point is to think creatively about opportunities to meet beyond the more typical times.

Create fun rituals and schedule them regularly. You could take turns hosting a group of friends and their families for a potluck supper every six weeks, get together monthly to discuss Oprah's latest book selections or invite fellow show-biz buffs over to eat popcorn and watch awards shows. Be on the lookout for excuses to join forces for fun times that can be repeated again and again.

Meet and/or talk on the phone for convenient lengths of time. Just because you have a lot of catching up to do with a friend doesn't mean you should postpone talking to her because you don't have a big block of time. Frequent, short bursts of time together, in person or on the phone, can keep friendships warm, close and convenient.

Do things as a family with another family or as a couple with another couple. At certain stages of life, getting time completely to yourself can be difficult. So if your spouse or family is compatible with a close friend's spouse or family, the best way to guarantee time together may be through group outings to the beach, the baseball field or the Fourth of July carnival, as well as back-yard barbecues, birthday celebrations and Friday-night pizza parties.

Invite a friend to volunteer with you. If you spend a lot of your spare time involved in volunteer activities, ask a friend to join you. Walks for hunger, building homes for Habitat for Humanity, singing in the church choir, delivering Meals on Wheels and organizing field day activities are even more rewarding when shared with a friend.

Take a class or join a club together. If you and a friend share some mutual interests, synchronize your schedules enough to check out that amateur photographers' club or sit in on that personal finance workshop. You'll be enriching your mind as well as your friendship.

Get together by e-mail. E-mail has definitely made it easier to communicate with friends near and far. The trick is to keep e-mail messages short and to give each other about two weeks to respond. That way no one feels pressured and the back-and-forth banter is fairly carefree.

Meet at the halfway point. Physically getting together with friends who aren't within easy driving distance is a challenge. But if the friendship is important enough, you can see each other somewhat regularly by figuring out good places to meet at the halfway point and scheduling lunches, shopping expeditions, museum excursions or get-away weekends in that area several times a year.

Keep the cards and letters coming. Given that e-mail communication and phone conversations have their limits and face-to-face contact isn't always practical, greeting cards, handwritten letters, keepsake books, small gifts and birthday remembrances sent by mail can often mean the difference between a friendship falling by the wayside or staying strong. Don't hesitate to send them.