Follow up
Nothing but documents of the task in work should be on the table.
Not every task can be finished in one step. You will have to wait for mail, for a spare part or for a customer returing from his holidays. In this time all documents of the task should be off the table and automatically brought back in time. This would be what was called a follow-up organization in the high time of paper.
Then we used a folder with 31 pockets. On a document to bring up later, we wrote a date and placed it into the folder in the pocket with the number corresponding to the day we wrote. For example for June 7th we put it in pocket 7. It didn´t matter, whether it was february or may. Every day just one pocket had to be checked for documents for the right month. This was efficient. But if You had to find a document by some accident, You could have to check all 31 pockets.
Today in the electronic world, follow up is much easier. Each task is presented on the day You chose and every document is readily available by 1-click-filing.
Follow up for contacts
But there is some kind of follow up left: You might want to organize customer contacts with meineZIELE. In the details of each adress there is a date field for the next time, You wish to contact this customer. Since we do not want to stuff the calender with hundreds of such intentions, it is better to make meineZIELE wait for the date coming and then present it only a few days earlier. Then this date will automatically appear as an new task with contact information connected in the 1-click-filing. One click and the phone number is on hand. After having called the customer, just take a note in the adress record and set a new date for the next contact.
This is not a full alternative for sophisticated CRM software. But if it is sufficient, why use something more complicated?
