For my work I am expected to turn in a weekly report. I’m not given a specific list of things to report, it’s more of a “keep us informed of what you’re doing”. It’s vague and frustrating
But, here is what I report: Contacts (Calls, messages, visits), Meetings, and Projects.
Meetings and projects are quick and easy, especially with the help of Timely and Fantastical. But I struggle with contacts. Because I am a minister, it is not just how many but WHO I contact that is important. This is why I list by name each person that I contact each day. On some days it can be upwards of 40 people. I also am doing this through a number of different platforms (SMS, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, etc.)
Does anybody have a suggestion for efficiently collecting data for who I message on what day?
Is this people who contact you and you get back to, or people you reach out to off your own back?
If the former, you need to create a log. Unfortunately I suspect the “etc.” services means that you are unlikely to be able to automate everything.
If the latter, how do you decide who to contact and through what channel? That decision making process would be the natural capture point, and the source data location may determine the best means.
Often times messages I send out are based on calendar events (programs, anniversaries, etc) or absences and are easy to track and remember. But I also send out batch messages 3-4 times a week. Right now I have an automation that sends out those mass sms devotional that (in theory) records the recipients to my day one journal. It starts in Drafts, goes to a shortcut, and then to dayOne. But I’m not crazy about that setup because it’s hard to gauge who I have and haven’t interacted with on a more personal level because it’s just a list of names.
At one time I had an oversized journal with a grid and I just checked off names each day. It was great for my own personal overview, but then I needed to manually type it out each week.
My immediate thought is to create a form to log when you do certain tasks and have that route through Zapier for better organization (using Paths to group task types) and then dump that as an email draft once a week for you to review and ship out.
Not fully automated but it may be a good process to smooth things out (could also be combined with other automated logging if you wanted).
An alternative is if you’re using a tool like Todoist for task management. If that’s the case, you could have a keyword in the task itself (ie, “Log: the task name”) and a Zapier Zap to trigger when a task is completed. If it contains the keyword “Log” it could then add that to your report log.
