Shreya's Urgent Inbox

Every message about the trip lands in one loud stream, so a rejected visa looks exactly the same as a question about the weather in Da Nang.

Who this is for

Shreya Deshpande, 31, minds her family's steel utensil shop in Raviwar Peth, Pune, where the lane is loud enough that she has never once heard her phone ring. In December she is taking 26 relatives to Vietnam, and she is the only one who knows anything. The software lands at 11:40 on a Tuesday, between a customer buying a kadhai and her uncle walking in to ask about his passport.

How the job is done today

There is one WhatsApp group with 26 people in it, running at about three hundred messages a day, mostly photographs of Da Nang and one cousin's opinion about the weather. The visa agent in Delhi messages her separately. The airline mails her. Eleven households pay her by UPI in odd amounts and she writes the totals in the diary kept under the shop counter, next to passport numbers copied out by hand. She reads the group at nine at night, scrolling back an hour to see what she missed. Twice, something that needed her on Monday was found by her on Thursday, and both times a cousin had to ring her to say check your messages.

The screens, in order

1. Needs you now — The screen she opens first and usually the only one she reads, showing at most five things that will cost money or a passport if today ends without her.
2. One message, one answer — Opens a single item so she can see what came in, which traveller it is about, and the reply already written out waiting for her to send it.
3. The pile — Holds everything that can wait until nine at night, grouped so that fourteen questions about baggage weight can be cleared in one go.
4. The twenty-six — One page per traveller with their passport, where their visa has reached, and what their household still owes, so she stops copying numbers into the diary.
5. Hand it to someone — Passes an item to her cousin Ninad or her sister so it leaves her list properly instead of being half-remembered.
6. Words that always count — Lets her type the words she never wants buried, like rejected, declined, failed and hospital, so anything carrying them goes straight to the top no matter what the assistant thinks.

What it keeps track of

• The twenty-six — who they are, which household they belong to, passport number and when it expires, where their visa has reached, anything the agent has objected to
• Messages that came in — who sent it, when, what it said, which traveller it is about, needs her today or can wait, answered or not, and who it was handed to
• Money — which household, how much, on what date, by UPI or cash, which travellers it covers, still owing or clear
• Answers already given — the question in short, the reply she sent last time, how many times it has come up again
• Words that always count — the word, who added it

The one decision that matters

Should the assistant answer the routine questions itself in her name, or only sort them and write the reply for her to send. Answering itself would clear the pile without her, which is tempting when the shop is full. It should only sort and draft, with one tap to send. A wrong answer about a visa date or a payment, sent in Shreya's name to twenty-six relatives, is far worse than a slow answer, and the whole arrangement runs on them believing that what Shreya says is correct. Drafting also fits the way she actually works, in forty second gaps between customers. Forty seconds is not enough to compose a reply. It is plenty to read one and send it.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out any automatic reading of her WhatsApp group and her email. In the first version she shares a message into the app the way she already shares photographs, and pastes the agent's message in. Building the automatic connection is where this idea would stall for weeks, and it is not the hard part. The hard part is deciding what matters. Also leave out itinerary planning, packing lists and splitting expenses at the end of the trip. She has a diary for those, and none of them are what wakes her at two in the morning.

How you would know it worked

The agent's message that Kaka's passport photograph was rejected arrives while Shreya is arguing about the price of a tawa. She never hears it. She opens the app at 11:40, it is the first line on the screen, and a fresh photograph is booked before lunch. And for a full week after that, no cousin has to ring her to say check your messages.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I am taking 26 people from my family to Vietnam in December and every message about the trip comes to my phone while I am standing in our shop in Raviwar Peth, where I cannot hear a thing. Build me a phone app where I forward messages from our family WhatsApp group and from our visa agent in Delhi, and it reads them and puts only the ones that really need me at the top, like a rejected visa or a payment that did not go through or a passport about to expire, and keeps the rest in a pile for nine at night. Keep a page for each of the 26 with their passport, where their visa has reached and how much their household has paid, and when the same question comes again show me the reply I gave last time so I can send it with one tap. It must never reply on its own, and I want to type my own list of words that always go to the top.