Build the calendar once
People who always remember are not blessed with better memories. They have a list. Spend one evening entering birthdays into your phone's calendar as events that repeat every year. For close family and friends, set two alerts: one a week ahead, which is when a card must be mailed or a gift ordered, and one on the morning itself. If you do not know someone's birthday, ask once, directly, and record it: "I am putting birthdays in my calendar, and I would like yours in it."
Add the dates that are harder than birthdays. The anniversary of a friend's parent's death, a due date, the day of a big exam or a surgery all belong in the calendar. A message on those days, such as "I know what today is, and I am thinking of you," is remembered for years.
What to send
A useful birthday message contains something only you could have written: a shared memory, a private joke, a particular thing you admire in the person. Match the effort to the closeness.
- Send a specific text or voice message to friends and colleagues.
- Telephone your closest friends, parents, grandparents and siblings, since a call is now rare enough to count as a gift.
- Mail a card to anyone over sixty, to children and to anyone having a hard year.
Keep a box at home with a dozen blank cards and a book of stamps, which removes the errand that stops most cards from being sent.
Between the birthdays
Relationships lapse through delay, not through decision. Adopt one rule: when someone crosses your mind, contact them within the minute. Send the photograph, the article or the single line, "This made me think of you, and no reply is needed." For the dozen people you would hate to lose, set a repeating reminder every month or two and do not dismiss it until you have written or called.
When you have let it slide
A late greeting is always better than none, and it needs no elaborate excuse. Write, "I missed your birthday, and I am sorry. I hope it was a good one." After a silence of years, skip the apology paragraph and begin with something warm and specific.
Tip When a friend mentions an interview, a test result or a hard conversation that is coming, set a reminder for that evening and ask how it went. Following up is rarer than remembering.
