Last week I told four people “I’ll send that over”. I sent two.
Not because I didn’t care. Those promises just got buried under meetings, messages and whatever landed next. By Friday I’d forgotten I’d made them, and the other person hadn’t.
Small promises are the easiest thing to drop at work. “I’ll check and come back to you.” “Let me dig out that deck.” “Happy to make the intro.” None of them go on a to-do list, because they’re said in passing. So now, first thing Monday, I spend ten minutes with AI catching them. Here’s how.
Step 1: Gather last week in one place
You need three things: last week’s calendar, the emails you sent, and any meeting notes you took. If your AI tool can connect to your calendar and email, give it read-only access and nothing more. If not, copy in your meeting notes and paste the sent emails that matter.
For work accounts, only use the AI tool your company has approved, and leave out anything confidential you wouldn’t want stored outside your company’s systems.
Step 2: Ask for promises, not a summary
A summary of last week isn’t useful here. You want the specific things you said you’d do. Be direct about that, and ask for who it was for and any deadline that was mentioned.
Here’s the prompt I use:
“Look through my calendar, sent emails and meeting notes from last week. List every time I said I would do something for someone, like sending a file, checking something, making an introduction or following up. For each one, give me: what I promised, who it was for, where I said it, and any deadline mentioned. Only include things I said I’d do, not things other people promised me. If you’re not sure something counts, include it and mark it as unsure.”
Step 3: Sort the list yourself
Go through the list with a quick decision for each line:
- Done: you already did it, cross it off.
- Dropped: it no longer matters, or the plan changed.
- Do this week: it goes on your list with a day next to it.
- Overdue: it needs a short note to the person today or first thing tomorrow.
This part stays with you. The AI doesn’t know which promises still matter to the other person, or which ones quietly expired. You do.
Step 4: Send the “this slipped” notes yourself
For anything overdue, a two-line message does the job. Something like: “Sorry, this slipped last week. Here’s the deck, and I’ll have the numbers to you by Wednesday.” You can ask AI for a first draft if you’re stuck, but write the final version in your own words and send it yourself.
Most people don’t mind a late follow-up. What they notice is silence.
Step 5: Make it a weekly habit
Ten minutes at the end of one week or the start of the next is enough. After a few weeks you’ll also notice a pattern, like always promising things in the last five minutes of a meeting. That’s useful to know, because the easiest promise to keep is the one you didn’t make on autopilot.
Where AI stops
AI is a good finder here. It reads faster than you and it catches the throwaway lines you forgot about. But it can miss promises made out loud that never made it into notes, and it can misread a polite phrase as a commitment. Treat its list as a starting point, keep it read-only so it never sends anything on your behalf, and make the follow-ups yourself.