How to keep track of conversations across email, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Slack

If the same people reach you by email, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Slack, the way to keep track is to stop organising by app and start organising by person. Every method below is a way of doing that. They differ in how much of the work stays with you.

Why do conversations get lost across apps?

Conversations get lost because each app only knows its own half of the story. An investor emails a term sheet, then follows up on WhatsApp. A customer asks a question on LinkedIn and expects the answer in Slack. Each inbox looks manageable when you open it. What nobody shows you is the full picture for one person: what they last asked, where they asked it, and whether you have answered.

That is why clearing each inbox does not fix it. You can reach zero unread in every app and still have three people waiting on you.

What is the simplest way to keep track?

The simplest way is a single list of open conversations, checked on a schedule. Two columns are enough:

• Waiting on me: people who have asked for something you have not yet given.
• Waiting on them: people you have asked, and the day you will chase if they stay quiet.

Go through it once a week. Add a line whenever a conversation moves from one app to another, because that is the moment it usually drops.

This costs nothing and works well for a dozen or so open threads. Its limit is that it depends on you remembering to write things down, on the busiest days, which are the days you are least likely to.

When does a CRM help?

A CRM helps when you need one shared record per person or company, and when more than one of you deals with them. It gives every contact a page, a history and a next step, and it lets a team see the same thing.

Its weakness for a single busy person is upkeep. The conversations happen in email and messaging apps, and the CRM only knows about them once someone logs them. Records drift out of date, and an out-of-date record is worse than none, because you trust it.

What does a unified inbox solve, and what does it leave?

A unified inbox solves the looking. Instead of opening five apps, you open one, and the messages are all there. For many people that alone is a relief.

It leaves the doing. You still read every message, work out what it needs, write the reply and remember to chase. The volume is the same, in a tidier place. If your problem is finding messages, a unified inbox is enough. If your problem is the hours spent answering and following up, it is not.

What changes when an assistant handles a contact for you?

What changes is who carries the thread. With the methods above, you hold each conversation in your head or in a list and push it forward yourself. An assistant that handles a contact takes that over for the people you hand to it.

In practice that means it keeps up with that person in every app they use to reach you, knows the history, and has the next message ready before you ask. You approve it, or you tell it to deal with that person from now on.

This suits the conversations that matter but do not need you personally each time: scheduling, sending the document someone is waiting on, chasing a reply, keeping a supplier or a candidate moving. It does not replace the handful of relationships you want to handle yourself.

Where does Mira fit?

Mira is the last kind, taken all the way. It is an autonomous assistant: it does not wait for you to open it. You text it, and it works inside your email, WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack, LinkedIn, calendar and CRM, reading every conversation as it arrives.

Hand Mira a person and it owns that relationship for you. It knows the whole history across every app, follows up when a thread goes quiet, and has the next reply ready before you think to ask. It checks in through the day, wraps up each evening with what moved and what is waiting, and only brings you the conversations that actually need you. Ask once for a repeat job, such as a brief before every meeting or a CRM update after every call, and it is done every time from then on.

The weekly list, the CRM and the unified inbox all depend on you remembering. Mira is the one that remembers for you, and keeps your conversations moving whether you are there or not. Nothing is sent as you until you say yes, and your messages are never used to train AI models; the privacy policy has the detail.

Which approach should you choose?

Choose by where your time actually goes.

• A few open threads, mostly in one app: the weekly list is enough.
• A team sharing the same customers: a CRM, with someone responsible for keeping it current.
• Too many apps to check, but replying is quick: a unified inbox.
• Too many people to keep moving, and the follow-ups are eating your day: an assistant that handles contacts for you, such as Mira.

The list, the CRM and the inbox each still need you to do the keeping up. If your business runs on conversations, the bigger step is to stop carrying them yourself, and that is what Mira is for.