Build one database you own with everyone you know, fed automatically from email, calendar and phone, as the base for everything else.
The idea
Aggregate is the first A in CAPITAL: one database of everyone you know, and used to know, as the foundation for prioritizing, investigating and staying in touch. If relationships are a core asset, the database is your bank account. Before you can grow the balance, you need to see what's in it. No app or network will ever agree to be your single source of truth, so the job is continual aggregation: everything flowing into one place you own, kept as close to reality as possible.
How to do it
Choose a database you'll actually use (the Will I Use It test).
Make it yours, separate from your employer's CRM.
Include everyone, personal relationships too. Prioritizing comes next.
Automate the pull from email, calendar and phone, and merge duplicates.
Save your manual effort for relationship details on the people who matter most.
Quick win: connect your work email to a web-based contact system today.
Example
Before Contactually I was a consultant whose business ran on relationships and reputation, and tracking them was my biggest sales challenge. Every tool I tried handed me an empty box to fill and maintain by hand, forever. The moment you stop feeding it, it drifts from reality and turns useless. But email, calendars and phones already held most of the interaction history. A CRM that went and fetched it became Contactually.
Watch out for
Chasing a pristine database. Complete and a little messy beats tidy and partial.
Relatable: Relatable does the pulling once you connect your email and calendar (I'm biased), and keeps everyone you haven't sorted yet in a queue for later. How-to: Connect your email and calendar, Bring in your contacts.
Related frameworks
The CAPITAL Strategy: Seven linked steps for building relationship capital: C (Consistent execution), A (Aggregate), P (Prioritize), I (Investigate), T (Timely engagement), A (Add value), L (Leverage).
Contact vs. Relationship: A contact is a name and an email; a relationship is the history, context and personal knowledge, and that's the part with value.
The Will I Use It Test: Pick whatever relationship database you'll actually use, from spreadsheet to CRM to whiteboard, and drop anything you don't.
Automate the Pull: Connect email, calendar and phone so your database fills and updates itself, then merge duplicates on email address.