← All guides

Stop nagging the wrong people

Three groups you actually maintain. Everyone else is silence.

The problem

Most CRMs decide who's "going cold" by counting days since you last messaged them. Sounds reasonable until you realise it treats your closest collaborator and a stranger you swapped business cards with five years ago the same way. Both get the nudge. Both get the "hey, just checking in!" prompt that the receiver can always tell came from a calendar.

Worse, when the system decides a contact must be important because you message them a lot, it has quietly made a judgement about your relationships that isn't its to make. Frequency isn't intimacy. You know that. The CRM shouldn't pretend otherwise.

What changes

You tag the people you actually want to keep up with into one of three buckets, and only those three:

  • Monthly — active clients, current collaborators, close mentors. People you'd notice not hearing from for four weeks.
  • Quarterly — past clients, industry peers, strategic weak ties. People who deserve a thoughtful note every couple of months.
  • Annual — connectors, distant acquaintances, conference contacts worth a yearly touchpoint.

Everyone else sits silently. The CRM never asks "have you spoken to Dave lately?" if you haven't told it Dave is someone you want to maintain a cadence with.

When someone does go overdue against the cadence you set, they appear in your morning Reconnections list with the reason attached — "Monthly cadence; last spoke 38 days ago." Not "you should reach out!" The CRM never imperatives outreach. It just makes the gap visible so you notice the next time an organic reason to write appears.

Cadence cohort windowsThree rows showing each cadence cohort's in-cadence window in teal and overdue-alert window in amber, along a shared linear axis of days since last meaningful contact.In cadenceOverdue alertQuiet (no signal)Monthlyevery 30 daysQuarterlyevery 90 days0–90d90–135dAnnualevery 365 days0–365d365–540d03090180365540600d

Why we built it this way

Algorithmic intimacy — the system inferring "you're close with Tom because you message him weekly" — feels surveilling, and is usually wrong. Relational closeness is a judgement only you can make. The CRM's job is to remember the call you said you'd make; not to decide who matters to you.

Three tiers is enough resolution to matter and few enough that the choice is fast. Five tiers makes you spend mental energy choosing between "monthly-ish" and "five-weekly." One tier collapses to spam.

What to read next

→ Same person, many relationships — why one label per contact is never enough.

← Previous

First capture

Walk back from a call, hold a button, talk for thirty seconds. The CRM picks up everything that mattered.

Next →

Same person, many relationships

Tom is a past client, a referrer, and a peer at the same time. The CRM lets him be all three.

Reading about it is one thing — the CRM earns its keep with real people in it.

Start 30-day free trial £8/month · cancel any time