Keep in Touch

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Touch sweep runs mondays · 8am and keeps the People dashboard fresh. Mondays — reads what arrived since last week, moves last-contact forward, and names at most two people to pick up.
• What is captured lands in the People book dataset, which lives at Data/People Book in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Touch log dataset, which lives at Data/Touch Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Introductions dataset, which lives at Data/Introductions in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The People dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: drifting — furthest over first · this week's two · how you were last in touch · on the book · recent touches · circles — and who is drifting · introductions you owe · touches, month by month · the book · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: People capture writes to People book · Touch sweep writes to People book · People capture writes to Touch log · Touch sweep writes to Touch log · People book shown by People · Touch log shown by People · People kept fresh by Touch sweep · Touch sweep run by Juniper · Juniper holds People capture · Juniper holds Catch-up prep · Circles, plans and introductions writes to People book · Circles, plans and introductions writes to Introductions · Introductions shown by People · Juniper holds Circles, plans and introductions.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Read Drifting on Monday morning, after the Touch sweep has been through the week. The order is furthest past your own cadence first, so the top of the list is the honest signal — and a name you are happy to see there is a cadence worth changing, not a failing.
• Take This week's two as exactly that — two names and a line of what you last talked about. Pick up the phone, or don't; ask Juniper for a message and it writes the draft for you to send; it never sends one and never asks whether you did.
• Say a catch-up the way you'd say it to whoever is in the room — "had coffee with Maya", "finally spoke to Sam" — and People capture moves last-contact forward. That is how the messaging apps and the calls the sweep cannot see get onto the book.
• Before you call someone, ask for the thread: "what was I last talking to Priya about?" Catch-up prep says it back from the touch log and from what you have told Juniper — when, how, what about, anything either of you said you'd do.
• Set the cadence to what you actually mean, not what you wish. "Just don't lose them" is a real answer — a year — and it keeps someone off the drifting list until they are truly drifting.
• When a name that shouldn't be there turns up, say so and it is set aside, never deleted; tell Juniper never to suggest them and the sweep won't. That is the correction that keeps the board yours.
• Name the circles your people belong to as they come up — "Sam's in my running club", "put Priya and Jordan in the university crowd" — and Circles on the board shows, after Monday's sweep, how many are in each and how many of them are drifting. A person can be in several, and a circle you never name is never made up for you.
• Keep what you said you would do together on the person's row: "I'd like to try the climbing wall with Sam". Ask "what could Sam and I do?" and Juniper starts from your own list, your notes on Sam and what you last did together, and adds ideas of its own, marked as its own, if you want more. With nothing there it says so, and a line you give goes on the list until you say it is done.
• Say who you promised to introduce to whom, and why, and it waits on Introductions you owe until you say it is made — or tick it on the board. Juniper keeps that it is owed; ask and it drafts the introduction for you to send, whoever it is between.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What you call each person — the name on the book is the word Juniper uses back.
• How often you meant to be in touch, per person — change a cadence by saying so, or leave it blank; a blank is never nudged.
• When the Touch sweep runs, or pausing it and keeping the book by hand.
• Who never belongs on the book — a kind of person, a sender, a channel — as a standing preference the sweep respects.
• The book itself is yours to edit: an email address the sweep should match on, a note, someone set aside brought back.
• The circles you name — the words are yours, and taking someone out of one is a sentence.
• The things you keep to do together and the introductions you owe — say one is done, or no longer wanted, and it comes off.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends at the first sweep's own screen, where the email and calendar grants are asked for — that is the whole pitch, so the ask sits in front, where it makes sense. The screen connects your email; connect your calendar on the Connectors screen first if you want the sweep to read it. Start it and Juniper reads back through a year of your email and calendar for one fact only: who you were actually in touch with, and when. Every person you had a real two-way conversation or a meeting with goes on the book with the last time you spoke; nothing is read for what it said, nothing is written back, and nobody is contacted. It is a real run and uses credits like any other.
2. When that first sweep finishes, Juniper leaves one card with what it found — how many people, across how many conversations and meetings — and an invitation to go through them: who shouldn't be on the book at all (set aside, never deleted), and for each person who should, how often you'd like to be in touch — monthly, every couple of months, each season, twice a year, or just don't lose them. That is also where you say who each person is to you, in your own words, and name anyone the sweep couldn't have seen — reached by phone, by a messaging app, in person. The sweep cannot know how often you meant to be in touch with anyone, so nobody shows as drifting until you have said.
3. Whenever Juniper asks you for something, it starts from what 1Presence already knows, in what you have told it and any list of people in your vault, offers what it finds for a yes, and asks only for the gaps.
4. Skip the sweep and the book still works by hand: Juniper takes the people you can think of one at a time — who they are to you, roughly when you last spoke and how, how often you'd like to — and nothing in that conversation touches your email. The Touch sweep waits on your Routines screen until you choose to run it.
5. Whatever is still blank waits on the Kit page with a way back to Juniper, and Juniper offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
6. After that the sweep runs every Monday at eight, scans only what is new since the last one, moves last-contact forward from the evidence, redraws the board, and leaves at most one short card a week — two names with a line of context each — or nothing, when nobody is drifting.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

← All kits