How to Decide Who You Should Spend More Time With
Social relationships are important to get right.
It does not matter how many friends you have. What matters is how high-quality your friendships are. But it can be difficult to know which friends you ought to prioritize over the other ones, and which relationships are simply not working.
After years of looking, I have found that these methods work excellently.
Surround yourself with those you want to be most like.
You have probably heard this famous quote from Jim Rohn:
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Whether that theory is true or not, it holds a valuable assumption: that we are influenced by the people we surround ourselves with. With this in mind, we should all strive for friendships that have a positive effect on us — not ones that hurt us or lead us down the wrong path.
So, be smart when selecting who those five people closest to you are.
Seek the company of people that love the things you love.
I spend most of my time on things I love doing.
I also spend most of my social time with people who love the same things as me. In his book Keep Going, Austin Kleon claims that it is not about being with the likeminded — but rather, with the like-hearted. In Show Your Work!, he writes how these are the friendships that propel you forward.
Spend more time on the things you love by spending more time with people who love the same things.
Choose to be with people that are able to listen more than they talk.
Listening signals patience, understanding, and selflessness.
If someone is willing to listen, they are capable of kindness, growth, and honesty. Conversations should be equal exchanges after all. Therefore, I spend less time with people that interrupt, appear disinterested, or talk too much about themselves.
Find people that listen — and listen to them too.
Avoid people that talk behind other people’s backs.
Trust is the foundation on which any relationship rests on.
And like Stephen Covey writes, you cannot trust these kinds of people. Someone that has the motive and capacity to badmouth another person without any reason is also someone that will definitely badmouth you when they get the chance. These people choose not to mind their own business, so they mind everything about yours.
Surround yourself with people that are open enough to be honest.
Prioritize people that give you energy.
Austin Kleon refers to this as the Vampire Test:
Spend more time with people and activities that leave you energized and happy. Spend less time with those that leave you “worn out and depleted”. People who drain you are the so-called vampires you are looking out for, and interactions with them can decrease your overall wellbeing.
Time is much better spent when it has positive value.
And the most positive value time can have is to spend it with the right people.
