Will this age well?

"How to group your contacts" can sound like a tooling question.

Should you use Groups?
or Tags?
Or maybe Relationships?

But there's a more important concern:

How well will these markers age?

I mean, a year from now:

• Will your "Major Donors" group have the same definition of "major"?

• Will everyone know what that "Partner" relationship type means?

• Will that tag you created today have been kept up to date?

If not, your short-term solution can create long-term confusion.

Because meanings change over time, and meaningless data erodes trust.

Here's the thing:

Next time you create a new marker for your contacts (group, tag, relationship type, whatever), ask yourself:

Can you define it clearly enough that every staff member will apply it the same way for all contacts over the next few years?

If not, just throw some contacts into a temporary group and be done with it.

Short-term needs deserve short-term solutions.
Long-term sanity demands forethought.

All the best,
A.