Sales work generates a high volume of tasks from multiple accounts, tools, and conversations each day. The risk is that reactive work fills the calendar and prospecting — the highest-leverage activity — gets squeezed out. Aftertone prevents that by protecting prospecting time before anything else can take it.

Project and tag structure

Create one project per key account, plus two shared projects: Prospecting and Pipeline Admin. Tags to set up: Follow Up, Waiting for Response, Proposal Out, Contract Stage, Intro Call. Filter by Waiting for Response at the start of each week to see every open thread at once.

Protect prospecting time first

Block a 30-minute prospecting slot at 9am every day before anything else lands in your calendar. Treat it as a fixed external commitment — if someone asks for a call at that time, offer an alternative slot. This block is the first thing to set up when you start a new week.

Smart Capture for post-call follow-ups

Immediately after a call, paste your notes into Quick Capture with Option Space and press Cmd+G. Aftertone extracts the action items and assigns them to the right account project automatically. Follow-ups are in your inbox within 60 seconds of ending the call.

Capturing during calls

Use Option Space to capture action items mid-call without interrupting the conversation. Get the item out of your head in three seconds and carry on. Deal with it in the next planning session.

Recurring tasks to set up

Three recurring tasks worth setting up immediately: weekly pipeline review (Friday 4pm), weekly CRM update (Friday 3pm), and a monthly account review for each key account. Set them once and they appear in your inbox automatically.

Minimum commitment per account

Before scheduling anything else for the week, make sure every key account has at least one outreach or follow-up task blocked. Do this during Sunday evening planning before meetings and requests arrive.

Using the weekly report

Check the project breakdown every Friday. If the Prospecting project is under 20 percent of your week consistently, the top of your pipeline will thin out in three to four weeks. The report shows you this early enough to act on it.

👉 Try it now — Block a 9am prospecting slot for every day next week before you do anything else. That one action is worth more than any other setup step.