personal_crm v1.0.0

name: "personal_crm" description: "Build and run a personal contact follow-up system (personal CRM): capture habits, tiered contact lists, a digital tickler file for dated follow-ups, re-engagement cadence, and outreach templates. Use when a user wants to stay in touch with contacts, never let relationships go cold, set up follow-up reminders, or re-engage dormant connections."

Personal CRM

Purpose

Most relationships die from neglect, not conflict. This skill installs a complete follow-up system for one person: capture every new contact fast, sort contacts into tiers, and let a digital tickler file surface exactly who needs a touch each day. Small, frequent, generous contact beats heroic catch-ups.

Workflow

1. Capture within 24 hours. Every new contact goes into the system the same day they are met, with where you met and one detail worth remembering. Follow-up speed matters: sales research popularized by Harvard Business Review found contacting a new inquiry within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes carried ~100x the contact odds and ~21x the qualification odds (directional figures from InsideSales/Dr. James Oldroyd data, ~two decades old, treat as direction not gospel). The personal version: same-day capture and a first follow-up within days, not months.

1. Tier the list. Put each contact in one tier:

• inner: people who tell you the truth, your core circle. Default touch every 14 days.
• key: important professional and personal contacts. Default every 45 days.
• outer: the wider network. Default every 90 days.
• aspirational: people you want to know but do not yet. Default every 120 days.
• dormant: strong past relationships gone cold. No automatic cadence; one deliberate re-engagement, then re-tier. Cadences are this skill's own defaults, adjustable in contacts.json under settings.cadence_days. They are not research findings. Sizing note: Robin Dunbar's 1992 research predicts humans can maintain stable relationships with roughly 150 people (95% CI 100 to 230). If the outer tier balloons past that, prune or the system collapses under its own weight.

1. Run the daily tickler. This is the tickler file from David Allen's Getting Things Done: 43 folders (31 daily + 12 monthly), each day's folder emptied and reviewed daily, the monthly folder redistributed at month start. Here the folder is a command:

   python3 <skill-dir>/bin/pcrm.py due
   

It lists overdue and soon-due contacts. Allen's trust rule applies: review it every day or the system loses credibility. If you skip days, check the missed ones before trusting it again.

1. Ping with generosity. Each touch should give something: an article, an introduction, a congratulation, a real question about their work. Never open with an ask. The core principle comes from Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone: ping contacts constantly, not only when you need something, and build the network before you need it. Use assets/touch-templates.md for message shapes: the memory ping, the useful share, the connector intro, the dormant re-engagement.

1. Log the touch. Record every interaction so the tickler resets on real activity, not good intentions:

   python3 <skill-dir>/bin/pcrm.py touch "Ada Lovelace" --note "sent her the robotics piece"
   

--next YYYY-MM-DD overrides the auto-computed due date when a specific follow-up was promised.

CLI quick reference

pcrm init
pcrm add "Name" --tier inner|key|outer|aspirational|dormant --channel email --note "met at X"
pcrm touch "Name" --note "what you did" [--next YYYY-MM-DD]
pcrm tier "Name" key
pcrm due [--days 7]
pcrm list [--tier outer]

Output Contract

• When setting up a system: a tiered contact list with every contact assigned a tier, a next-due date, and a capture note.
• When running the daily review: the output of pcrm due, plus drafted ping messages for each due contact using the templates (one short, specific, generous message per person, referencing a real detail).
• When re-engaging a dormant contact: one message shaped by the dormant template, naming the shared history, with zero asks.
• Every factual claim about the research behind the system (tickler file, Dunbar, follow-up stats) must match references/research-notes.md. Never restate the cadence defaults as research.

Operating Rules

1. Same-day capture is non-negotiable. A contact added weeks late is a contact the system failed.
2. One touch is a touch: a text, a call, a useful email, a real comment on their work. Liking a post does not count.
3. Never ping with an ask first. Give twice before asking once.
4. Keep the tiers honest. Promoting everyone to inner breaks the cadence math; the list must fit real life.
5. The tickler is reviewed daily or not at all. No batching a month of pings in one sitting.
6. Dormant re-engagements get one careful message. No follow-up nudge if there is no reply; re-file them as outer with a long cadence or let them go.