How to prep for a coffee or 1:1 in two minutes using your contact notes

Two minutes before you meet, re-read your last note on the person to reload the context you'd paged out, pick one open thread to ask about and one update of your own to share, and keep the prep invisible so it reads as warmth rather than a database read-out. Right after the catch-up, spend thirty seconds noting what changed, so next time's prep is just as quick. That's the whole routine - and it's the difference between "so, what's new?" and "how did the move to Berlin go?".

Two minutes before the coffee, open the person in Contact Book and read what you wrote last time. The goal is to reload the context you genuinely had but have since paged out: the project they were stressed about, the trip they were planning, the name of their partner. You're not memorising a dossier, you're refreshing a friendship you already have. (For why we lose that context in the first place, see why we forget the people who matter most.)

From the note, choose a single open thread to ask about, the move, the interview, the recovery. One specific, warm question ("did the Berlin move actually happen?") is worth more than ten generic ones. Then pick one real thing from your own life to share, so it's an exchange and not an interview. Two threads is plenty; the rest of the conversation will find itself.

A caution: the prep should be invisible. Asking "how's your mother's hip, the left one, that you mentioned on the 3rd of March?" is uncanny, not caring. Hold the detail lightly and let it surface naturally. The note is there so you remember to ask about the hip at all, not so you recite the file. Warmth, not a database read-out.

Right after the catch-up, while it's fresh, spend 30 seconds updating the note: what's new, what changed, anything you promised to follow up on. This is the step that compounds. Each meeting leaves the next one easier to prep, and over a year you build a quietly accurate picture of someone's life that makes every future hello land warmer. The two-minute prep only works because the 30-second close-out keeps feeding it.