If you manage accounts—clients, investors, partners—you already know: staying organized is half the battle. Let one follow-up slip, and suddenly you’re playing catch-up or (worse) losing a deal. This guide is for people who use Affinity, or are thinking about it, and want clear, practical steps for using its reminders and follow-up features. No fluff, just honest advice to help you stop stuff from falling through the cracks.
Why Reminders and Follow-Ups Matter (And What Affinity Actually Does)
Let’s be honest: CRMs promise the world, but most of us just need a system that nudges us before we forget something important. Affinity’s reminders and tasks features are decent—they’re not as slick as some specialized tools, but for most account management work, they get the job done.
Here’s what Affinity offers: - Basic reminders tied to people, organizations, or deals. - Tasks you can assign (to yourself or others) with due dates. - Follow-up suggestions based on email activity—though these are hit-or-miss. - Integrations with calendar and email, but don’t expect magic.
What you won’t get: project management-level task workflows, detailed recurring reminders, or bulletproof automation. If you want that, you’ll need to bolt on something extra, like Asana or Zapier. But for most account management, Affinity’s built-in tools are enough—if you set them up right.
Step 1: Get Your Affinity Workspace Ready
Before you start setting reminders, make sure your Affinity setup isn’t a mess. Otherwise, you’ll just bury yourself in notifications.
- Clean up your lists. Double-check that your main lists (people, organizations, opportunities) are up to date.
- Limit notifications. Go to your settings and turn off anything you know you’ll ignore—no one needs five emails for the same update.
- Sync your calendar and email. This lets Affinity pull in activity, so it can prompt you to follow up. It’s not perfect, but it helps.
Pro tip: Affinity’s Chrome extension is worth installing if you’re in and out of Gmail all day.
Step 2: Choose the Right Place for Your Reminders
Affinity lets you create reminders at a few different levels. Here’s how to pick:
- Contact-level reminders: Best for “Check in with Sarah every quarter.” Attach these to a person or organization.
- Opportunity-level tasks: Use these for deal-specific actions, like “Send revised proposal by Friday.”
- General tasks: For personal to-dos not tied to a specific contact or deal. If you have a lot of these, you might want a separate to-do app.
What to skip: Don’t bother setting reminders on every email thread. That gets noisy, fast. Stick to the big stuff.
Step 3: Setting Reminders and Follow-Up Tasks (The Actual How-To)
3.1 Add a One-Off Reminder
Let’s walk through it:
- Go to the relevant contact, organization, or opportunity in Affinity.
- Look for the “Tasks” or “Reminders” panel—usually on the right side.
- Click “Add Task” or “Set Reminder.”
- Enter a clear description. E.g., “Follow up about contract signature.”
- Set a due date and (optional) a time.
- Assign it to yourself or a teammate.
- Save.
You’ll get notified by email and/or in-app when it’s due.
3.2 Create a Recurring Reminder (The Workaround)
Affinity doesn’t natively support recurring tasks (as of early 2024). Here’s how to hack it:
- When a recurring task pops up, mark it complete and immediately create a new one for the next interval (monthly, quarterly, etc.).
- If you’re dealing with lots of recurring reminders, consider using Google Calendar or a simple recurring-task app, and link back to Affinity when needed.
Yes, it’s manual. But trying to shoehorn recurring workflows into Affinity will only frustrate you.
3.3 Using Follow-Up Suggestions
Affinity tries to be smart by surfacing “You haven’t contacted this person in X days” nudges. Here’s the truth:
- These can be useful for accounts you don’t touch often.
- But they’re based on email/calendar activity—if you call or meet outside those channels, Affinity won’t know.
- Treat these as a backup, not your main system.
If you want to rely on these, check the “Suggested Follow-Ups” section in your dashboard or list views.
Step 4: Manage and Track Your Tasks (Without Drowning)
Setting reminders is easy—keeping up with them is where things go sideways. Here’s how to avoid drowning in overdue tasks:
- Review your tasks weekly. Block 10 minutes every Friday to clear or reschedule what’s overdue.
- Use filters. In Affinity’s lists, filter by “Open tasks” or “Due soon.” Don’t scroll aimlessly.
- Keep descriptions short and specific. “Follow up” is useless by itself. “Send Q2 pricing update to Alex” is better.
- Don’t overdo it. If everything is a “high priority,” nothing is. Be ruthless about what actually gets a reminder.
What doesn’t work: Letting overdue tasks pile up. If you’re snoozing the same task every week, something’s broken—either your system or your process.
Step 5: Collaborate (or Don’t) With Your Team
If you work solo, you can skip this. But if you share accounts:
- Assign tasks to teammates directly. Affinity lets you pick who’s responsible, so there’s no “I thought you were on it” confusion.
- Use comments in tasks for handoff notes or updates.
- Don’t micromanage. Assign only what matters—no one likes getting spammed with tasks for every trivial thing.
If you need more robust team task management (like dependencies or Kanban boards), Affinity isn’t built for that. You’ll need an external project management tool.
Step 6: Integrate (Lightly) With Other Tools
Affinity plays decently with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Gmail. Here’s what’s actually useful:
- Email reminders: You’ll get notified when tasks are due, but don’t expect deep two-way integration.
- Calendar sync: Good for seeing meetings and using them as touchpoints, but tasks won’t show up as calendar events.
- Zapier automations: For power users—set up Zaps to create tasks from form fills, Slack pings, or other triggers. But keep it simple, or you’ll be debugging Zaps instead of managing accounts.
Don’t waste time on overcomplicated integrations. Start with the basics and only automate what’s painful to do manually.
Pro Tips for Not Hating Your Reminders
- Batch your follow-ups. Set aside time blocks, so you’re not context-switching all day.
- Delete or close tasks you won’t do. Don’t let your list become a guilt trip.
- Adjust as you go. If you’re ignoring reminders, your setup isn’t working—change it.
- Don’t chase “inbox zero” for tasks. The goal is to stay on top of what matters, not to have an empty list.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple and Iterate
Reminders and follow-up tasks aren’t magic—especially in Affinity, where the tools are solid but not flashy. The trick is to keep your process simple, stay honest about what you’ll actually do, and tweak your setup as you learn what works for you. Try not to overthink it. Set a few reminders, follow up reliably, and let the results speak for themselves.
Now, close this tab and go follow up with that client you’ve been putting off.