Despite all our technology and its endless promises of saving us time, we still find ourselves the busiest we’ve ever been.

There is the obvious question of ‘busy doing what’ but that aside, with a shortage of time, what can we do to manage all the people we have in our life? Especially at this time of year with festivities, finishing up for the year, parties, shopping and family and friends gatherings.

Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, theorized in the 1930’s that humans could have no more than about 150 meaningful relationships, yet today the average person has 338 connections on Facebook and 930 connections on Linkedin.

So how do you manage all these relationships? I sense the short answer is that you can’t, at least not to the same degree, so don’t even try.

I realise that’s not too helpful so here are five ways you can make some progress.

1. Make sure everyone knows you love them.
2. Put your partner at the top, they are your partner after all, and really listen to them, not the voice in your head.
3. List your relationships, be clear about what you want from each of them and what you’re happy to give.
4. Prioritise your relationships to focus on the most important and create a plan to give them your attention.
5. Don’t leave people hanging or guessing. Set expectations and boundaries. They’ll respect you for it and you set an example.

Don’t forget your relationship with yourself! Actually, you should prioritise this one because to be the best for others, you need to be the best version of you.

Where are you going to start?