Step 1: Open your Sent folder and set a window
Gmail. Every string below already contains in:sent newer_than:1y: sent mail only, last twelve months only.
Outlook / Microsoft 365. Open the Sent Items folder first, then search the phrase in quotes. Add sent:>=01/09/2025 (or your own start date) to bound it. Outlook searches the folder you're standing in, so the folder matters more than the operator.
Superhuman / Missive / HEY. All pass Gmail syntax through. Paste as-is.
Step 2: Run the 14 strings
Run them in order. Don't read the emails yet. Just log the hits. Reading kills momentum, and step 3 is for reading.
Braces are Gmail's OR: {"a" "b"} finds either phrase.
| # | What you're hunting | Paste this |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The introduction you promised | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll introduce" "I will introduce" "happy to introduce" "let me introduce"} |
| 2 | The connection you offered | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll connect you" "put you in touch" "make an intro"} |
| 3 | The thing you said you'd send | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll send" "I'll get that over" "I'll share" "I'll forward"} |
| 4 | The thing you said you'd write | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll put together" "I'll draft" "I'll pull together" "I'll write up"} |
| 5 | The document you said you'd find | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll dig out" "I'll find that" "I'll look out" "somewhere in my files"} |
| 6 | The favour you volunteered | in:sent newer_than:1y {"happy to take a look" "happy to review" "happy to have a look" "send it over and I'll"} |
| 7 | The classic | in:sent newer_than:1y "circle back" |
| 8 | The follow-up that never followed | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll follow up" "I'll chase" "I'll come back to you"} |
| 9 | The ball you put in their court | in:sent newer_than:1y {"ping me" "give me a shout" "shout if" "let me know when"} |
| 10 | The named date | in:sent newer_than:1y {"in the new year" "after the summer" "next quarter" "in a few months"} |
| 11 | The conditional restart | in:sent newer_than:1y {"once things settle" "when things calm down" "once you're through" "when the dust settles"} |
| 12 | The reconnect | in:sent newer_than:1y {"let's reconnect" "let's pick this up" "let's get something in" "we should catch up"} |
| 13 | The open loop you'd forgotten | in:sent newer_than:1y {"I'll keep you posted" "I'll let you know" "I'll check with" "leave it with me"} |
| 14 | Where promises go to die | in:sent newer_than:1y {"no rush" "no urgency" "whenever suits" "no pressure at all"} |
Run 14 last and read it hardest. "No rush" is what you write when you genuinely mean to do something and have no mechanism to make it happen. Highest-yield line on the list.
Step 3: Log the hits, don't fix them yet
Four columns. Paste into whatever you have open.
| Person | Company | What I promised (quoted exactly) | Date sent | Days open | Closed? |
|---|
Rules that keep this to ten minutes:
- Quote the sentence exactly. "I said I'd help" is useless in three weeks. "I'll introduce you to Sarah at Acme" is a message you can send.
- Skip anything you actually closed. You want debt, not history.
- Don't judge the list while you build it. Log first, feel bad later, act tomorrow.
Step 4: Triage in one pass
Score each row on two things only. How warm is it? Did they reply after your promise, or did the thread die there? How cheap is it to close? An introduction you can send in ninety seconds is not a report you'd have to write.
| Cheap to close | Expensive to close | |
|---|---|---|
| They stayed warm | Do these today. Highest return, lowest cost, and they'll be pleased to hear from you. | Book them. Don't do the work. Offer the conversation instead. |
| They went cold | Do these this week. A delivered promise is the best cold-open in existence: no pitch, no ask, just the thing you said you'd do. | Let most of these go. Pick the two that matter, delete the rest. Keeping them is guilt, not pipeline. |
You want five to ten rows in the top-left. That's your week.
Step 5: Reopen without apologising
The instinct is to lead with the apology. Don't. An apology makes the delay the subject and hands them a reason to say "no problem" and close the thread. Lead with the thing itself.
A. The introduction you never made
Subject: Sarah at Acme
[Name], back in March I said I'd introduce you to Sarah at Acme and then completely failed to. Doing it now.
Sarah, [Name] is [one line, why they're worth the intro]. [Name], Sarah runs [thing]. I'll leave you two to it.
B. The thing you said you'd send
Subject: The thing I promised you in February
[Name], I said I'd send you [the thing] and it's been sat on my list ever since. Attached.
No ask attached to it. If it's useful and you want to talk it through, I'm about.
C. The date they gave you that's now passed
Subject: You said July
[Name], you told me in February to come back to you in July. It's [month]. Consider this me coming back to you, only late.
Is [the thing they mentioned] still live, or has it moved?
Three rules for all three: no apology in the first line, no "just checking in", no ask in the first message. Deliver the promise. Let the reply do the work.