Sort everyone into three tiers by gut feeling (love, like, don't know) and spend more time on A's than B's, and more on B's than C's.
The idea
Walk into a grocery store for marinara and you face a whole aisle of nearly identical jars. Research on consumer behavior shows that fewer options lead to more purchases; choosing costs energy. Contact lists work the same way. In our early years we helped people build elaborate buckets (Past Clients split into Amazing, Great and OK, repeated for Leads, Referrals and the rest), and every contact became fifteen or twenty decisions. No wonder people gave up. I'd rip the bucket lists out of my book's appendix. Three tiers is enough.
How to do it
Add a column, tag, or group: Sphere A, Sphere B, Sphere C. (Full words search better than lone letters.)
A: people you love, or who love you. B: people you like or know a bit. C: everyone else.
Look at each name, react, move on. Don't overthink it.
Spend more time and effort on A's than B's, and more on B's than C's.
Fill in the details for your A's only: birthday, home address, phone number, an outreach interval.
Focus on the A's, help B's become A's, and let C's get the newsletter. If one perks up, great.
Example
In my coaching, real estate agents sorted their sphere this way. The best agents draw over 60% of their annual income from people they love, B's bring 25-40% and C's 0-25%, yet most agents spend their time chasing the people they don't know.
Watch out for
The labels can vary. Some prefer People I love / like / know / don't really know.
Worried someone filed you as a C? They probably haven't. Most people are too busy organizing their own Tupperware.
Connection Over Value: Choose who to stay close to by who you genuinely like, not who seems important, because liking is what makes you actually reach out.
The Grocery Store Test: If you saw them at the end of the cereal aisle, would you run over to hug them, or hide behind the Frosted Flakes?
Choice Overload: The more options and categories you face, the less likely you are to act. Cut the choices down, starting with your CRM tags.
Prioritize Around Your Goals: Before sorting anyone into A/B/C, name your goal and the types of people who help with it, so you know whose names to look for.