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I am not the target audience for this product, but I can’t get over the irony of building a CRM specifically to track details about people you genuinely care ab

I am not the target audience for this product, but I can’t get over the irony of building a CRM specifically to track details about people you genuinely care about

Goofy_Coyote 1mo ago
I use Obsidian as my personal CRM, and I get this a lot. It feels like people put more value on memorizing facts than writing them down, as if it’s somehow more noble to remember something about someone, but if you write it down to not forget it, it’s suddenly not as valuable a gesture. I never understood that. I had a problem (bad memory), I cared enough to find, and create a solution, and consistently use and maintain it, it’s way more work that I’m putting in to make sure I remember things about the people I care about vs just having it memorized better than another person by the virtue of my genetics. This is not a criticism or a shot at smugglerFlynn here though, they already said they’re not the target audience. It’s just my personal experience and this looked like a good starting thread to post it under.
- smugglerFlynn 1mo ago
  Interestingly, I took a different route: the problem was not quality of my memory, but all the overblown expectations I've put towards myself remembering all that stuff. Turns out most people are not even trying to juggle all these facts. Interestingly, just removing this pressure helped to remember more about the people I care about. Not saying this will work for you (everyone is different), just sharing my 2c.
kstrauser 1mo ago
My brain is not wired to remember certain details about people. I can have a conversation with them for an hour, truly engage with them and pay attention to what they say because I care to do so, and a week later remember almost nothing about the talk. I have a Notes.app record listing my coworkers and the important things I want to remember about them. I wish I could remember all these things without writing it down, but I can't, even when it's important to me and something I'm genuinely interested in. Something like Monica to keep track of all those social details in an organized, completely private and self-hosted way, would be a godsend for me.
- mastermage 1mo ago
  Exactly this if I would not track it in my Calendar I would forget the birthday of my grandparents who I love dearly. It just cannot compute in the web of information that is in my brain. I need a crutch for it.
  - kstrauser 1mo ago
    I feel seen. Yes. It’s the same fundamental reason to-do apps exist. “Do you really need an app to remember to pay the rent on the first of the month?” “Demonstrably yes.” And there are events less personably important to me that matter to others, like “tell your son happy anniversary!” I barely know their kid, but it makes the person hearing it happy that someone thought of a nice happening in their life. Now their day is slightly brighter. Darned if I’d ever remember that without something to nudge me.
rancar2 1mo ago
It may be a comforting idea to believe that our affection should require no assistance at all, and expect from all others that it should flow quite effortlessly from a caring mind. But human capacity, I have come to realize with both age, health, and genetic variations is rarely so simple a matter. When a person admits quite vulnerably that their memory falls short as the author has, yet their desire to care for their relationships remains entirely intact, there is something very moving in that alone. But to spend ten years quietly building as the author has is an act of love for people they care for are not lost to memory and forgotten in time.

I am not the target audience for this product, but I can’t get over the irony of building a CRM specifically to track details about people you genuinely care about

Goofy_Coyote 1mo ago

I use Obsidian as my personal CRM, and I get this a lot. It feels like people put more value on memorizing facts than writing them down, as if it’s somehow more noble to remember something about someone, but if you write it down to not forget it, it’s suddenly not as valuable a gesture. I never understood that. I had a problem (bad memory), I cared enough to find, and create a solution, and consistently use and maintain it, it’s way more work that I’m putting in to make sure I remember things about the people I care about vs just having it memorized better than another person by the virtue of my genetics. This is not a criticism or a shot at smugglerFlynn here though, they already said they’re not the target audience. It’s just my personal experience and this looked like a good starting thread to post it under.

smugglerFlynn 1mo ago
Interestingly, I took a different route: the problem was not quality of my memory, but all the overblown expectations I've put towards myself remembering all that stuff. Turns out most people are not even trying to juggle all these facts. Interestingly, just removing this pressure helped to remember more about the people I care about. Not saying this will work for you (everyone is different), just sharing my 2c.

kstrauser 1mo ago

My brain is not wired to remember certain details about people. I can have a conversation with them for an hour, truly engage with them and pay attention to what they say because I care to do so, and a week later remember almost nothing about the talk. I have a Notes.app record listing my coworkers and the important things I want to remember about them. I wish I could remember all these things without writing it down, but I can't, even when it's important to me and something I'm genuinely interested in. Something like Monica to keep track of all those social details in an organized, completely private and self-hosted way, would be a godsend for me.

mastermage 1mo ago
Exactly this if I would not track it in my Calendar I would forget the birthday of my grandparents who I love dearly. It just cannot compute in the web of information that is in my brain. I need a crutch for it.
- kstrauser 1mo ago
  I feel seen. Yes. It’s the same fundamental reason to-do apps exist. “Do you really need an app to remember to pay the rent on the first of the month?” “Demonstrably yes.” And there are events less personably important to me that matter to others, like “tell your son happy anniversary!” I barely know their kid, but it makes the person hearing it happy that someone thought of a nice happening in their life. Now their day is slightly brighter. Darned if I’d ever remember that without something to nudge me.

rancar2 1mo ago

It may be a comforting idea to believe that our affection should require no assistance at all, and expect from all others that it should flow quite effortlessly from a caring mind. But human capacity, I have come to realize with both age, health, and genetic variations is rarely so simple a matter. When a person admits quite vulnerably that their memory falls short as the author has, yet their desire to care for their relationships remains entirely intact, there is something very moving in that alone. But to spend ten years quietly building as the author has is an act of love for people they care for are not lost to memory and forgotten in time.