Your daily 15-minute routine in Swimlane

Social selling pays off through consistency, not bursts. Fifteen focused minutes a day in Swimlane are enough to keep every conversation moving, while campaigns handle the repetitive part. Here is a routine that uses the app the way it is built.

Minutes 0–3: the dashboard

Open Dashboard from the sidebar.

1. Reminders: handle everything in red first, it is due today or overdue. Click a row to open the contact, do what the reminder says, then hover the row and click Mark as done.
2. People to interact with: pick one or two people. They fit your ideal customer well but you have barely interacted with them. Open the contact, then like or comment on one of their recent posts on LinkedIn, or send a short, personal message.
3. Active campaigns: a quick glance is enough. A growing Deferred tile means your daily limits or office hours are holding messages back, which is expected.

Minutes 3–10: the inbox, view by view

Open Inbox. Messaging has tabs across the top: work through them in this order.

1. Unread: read everything new.
2. Last message by contact: these people are waiting for you. Answer them. Swimlane suggests a reply drafted from the conversation and written in your tone of voice; edit it so it sounds exactly like you before sending.
3. Never replied: contacts who wrote last and whose conversation you have not opened. Nobody should stay here more than a day.
4. Last message by me: you spoke last. If a conversation has gone quiet for a few days, send a light follow-up, or set a reminder to come back later.

While you are in a conversation, keep the CRM up to date in a few clicks: add a tag, write a note, move the contact to the right pipeline stage.

Set a reminder instead of relying on memory. On a conversation row, click the reminder button, then Create a new reminder in the Reminders window. It comes back on the dashboard and in Reminders on the chosen day.

Minutes 10–13: received invitations

In the inbox sidebar, open Invitations → Received. For each person, click Accept or Ignore. Swimlane keeps a contact for every sender either way, so you can still find them later.

Accept people who match your ideal customer or who could open a conversation; ignore the rest without guilt. After accepting someone relevant, a short thank-you message is often the best icebreaker.

Minutes 13–15: check the machine

1. Open the Queue panel (rocket icon at the bottom of the sidebar). A few Failed rows are worth a look; many of them usually mean LinkedIn needs to be reconnected.
2. Open Reminders in the inbox sidebar and select To do to make sure nothing due slipped through.

Once a week

• Pipelines: review each board. Move stalled deals, and put finished ones in a stage marked as done or abandoned so they stop resurfacing in People to interact with.
• Settings → Usage: see how close you get to your daily ceilings (see Check your daily usage).
• Settings → Personalization: reread Your ideal customer and How you help if your offer has changed (see Tell Swimlane about your business: AI context, ideal customer and tone of voice).
• Dashboard → Find new leads: run a People Search or a Thematic Posts search to feed a list, and let a campaign work it.

Habits that make the difference

• Write your own messages in Swimlane. Your tone-of-voice profile is learned from what you write and send yourself, and suggestions sent untouched don't teach it anything.
• Answer before you prospect. A conversation waiting for you is worth more than a new invitation.
• Don't treat campaigns as fire and forget. A sequence does not stop on its own when someone replies, so check your conversations every day and branch your campaigns on Replied to message.
• Keep the routine short and daily. Swimlane also asks you to reconnect LinkedIn when the session expires, and a daily visit means you notice it right away.