Ditched voice mail, increased productivity

[lucille]

This might not work for everyone depending on what kind of calls they are getting. I decided about three months ago that my phone was owning me. I was spending quite a bit of time fielding tons of voice mails that really had no point. Many were from family or friends, all were the same message "I called, call me". I also received many that were simply junk messages. Some were cold calls from entities that somehow got my cell number. So I was wasting time getting into voice mail in order to have more time wasted on a pointless message that would be then ignored. Some were calls from businesses I actually had some sort of relationship with. But most of those were largely pointless calls asking me to waste my time on some fools errand or to remind me of an appointment I already had in my scheduler. So about 80% of these calls were also frivolous. But many of those frivolous calls were used to somehow dump something in my court or obligate me to call that entity or person back that was duplicated by mail or was already being handled anyway. Voicemail had become a great way for people to absolve themselves of a task or get it off their to do list, but this was creating more work for me, much of it not truly mandatory or needed.

The other thing I did was to populate my cell phone with the numbers of people and businesses who have a valid reason to be contacting me. Things like doctors offices, friends, businesses that have an actual need to contact me from time to time like our bank. This allows me to screen my calls. If I see a number not in my call list I wait until I am at a computer and look it up online. 98% of the time I can determine who this mystery caller is and then decide if I need to call them back or not.

So I shut down our landline and I turned off voice mail on my cell phone. Most of these frivolous calls have stopped. The sales and cold calls have all but dissapeared since I shut down my voice mail. Most of the pointless business type calls have stopped also. The only once I have received in the last few weeks were actual urgent reasons to speak to me.

The landline is absolutely not missed at all. The only thing missed is having a fax line but were looking into an online fax option for that. Since this line was heavily called by sales cold calls, even though it was a newer unlisted number it was a large gain in time with a minimal loss. This is probably saving me an hour a week of wasted time.

The cell phone really amazed me. Since I no longer have to periodically waste about 15 minutes on voice mail every few days I have gained back that time. So about 30 minutes a week. The lower call volume eliminated easily another hour a week of wasted time. So I have gained up to 2.5 hours of my life back per week. Not to mention cutting out distractions that derail what you were doing. Frequently these extra calls meant I stopped what I was doing to go focus on whatever the call was dealing with. Not being distracted mid task has increased actual task productivity but I don't have a measure for that.

[USCGamecocks]

And don't you feel better? Sounds like a good plan. Whenever I'm sketchy and not wanting to answer my phone I don't especially if I don't know the number. Seems like I always get conned into helping someone move or do something I don't want to when it's not someone that's programmed into my phone.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by USCGamecocks

And don't you feel better? Sounds like a good plan. Whenever I'm sketchy and not wanting to answer my phone I don't especially if I don't know the number. Seems like I always get conned into helping someone move or do something I don't want to when it's not someone that's programmed into my phone.

That's why I have everyone who has an actual need to talk to me programed in my phone book. Then I can decide if it is a good time to talk to them or not.

[b4freedom]

I did this at work. It's lovely! Now everyone emails me and submits helpdesk cases (as they should be doing).

I should try it on my cell phone.

I've already blocked text messages. I'm not going to pay 15¢ to get the 100 messages from my coworker to tell me the servers crashed or the "What's up!?!" from friends. Why is it 15¢ anyhow? Have anyone ever done the math on the markup for text messages? It probably cost the telecoms less then 1/1000 of a penny to actually transmit the message.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by b4freedom

I did this at work. It's lovely! Now everyone emails me and submits helpdesk cases (as they should be doing).

I should try it on my cell phone.

I've already blocked text messages. I'm not going to pay 15¢ to get the 100 messages from my coworker to tell me the servers crashed or the "What's up!?!" from friends. Why is it 15¢ anyhow? Have anyone ever done the math on the markup for text messages? It probably cost the telecoms less then 1/1000 of a penny to actually transmit the message.

Do you get lots of work traffic on your personal phone? I had someone leak my personal cell phone at work, a crazy manager got ahold of it and thought this was her direct line to have me do work for her 24-7. I finally had to tell work that either they buy me a work phone if I need to be in constant contact with work or I was changing my number and giving it to no one at work.

[Julie Rains]

I know some businesses that don't have voice mail just because it would be just too difficult to respond to every message -- not to mention that some people don't leave clear messages with good contact info.

I finally broke down and got caller ID at my office and home. This has helped me dramatically -- I want to talk to my clients but need to avoid the telemarketers. I'll admit that if I am in the midst of a project, I like to wait for a natural stopping point rather than constantly interrupt myself. I know that some people don't understand not having instant availability but the tradeoff is greater productivity from not having to restart projects that were interrupted. The result is higher quality service -- overall.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by Julie Rains

I know some businesses that don't have voice mail just because it would be just too difficult to respond to every message -- not to mention that some people don't leave clear messages with good contact info.

I finally broke down and got caller ID at my office and home. This has helped me dramatically -- I want to talk to my clients but need to avoid the telemarketers. I'll admit that if I am in the midst of a project, I like to wait for a natural stopping point rather than constantly interrupt myself. I know that some people don't understand not having instant availability but the tradeoff is greater productivity from not having to restart projects that were interrupted. The result is higher quality service -- overall.

I actually timed how long it took me to get back on track fully after an interruption when working on a project. Then I tracked how many times I was interrupted during the day by non-important phone calls that could have been sent as email or people stopping by for various non urgent things. I was losing a huge chunk of my day to distractions. So I set a block of time in the morning where my phone was sent directly to voice mail at work. I used that time to get organized for the day and any really critical work done. If I knew I needed more time without distractions I would come in an hour early to do that specific task all in one shot. Then I was much less worried about being interrupted or stuck in meetings the rest of the day.

[hermione]

Several years ago, my sister and I kept getting unwanted calls from our stepfather who was bothering us a lot, and a guy from our church suggested "divorcing the phone" and not letting it dominate your life, interrupt dinner, etc.

Before, whenever the phone rang, we felt compelled to pick it up. It took some practice sitting there letting it ring, and then checking the voicemail after we finished whatever it was we were doing. Now we live by the philosophy, "if it's important, they'll leave a message."

Most of our calls are unsolicited and wrong numbers, too, so this saves us a lot of time. I've also blocked text messages, because the cost is ridiculous. It may be $0.15 per message, but including the taxes, one or 2 messages costs almost $2.00 (at least it was a few months ago).

For business, I encourage customers to use email to contact us unless it's an urgent matter, because most of our inquiries are about custom ordering (clothes and costumes for dogs and horses) and it's easier to keep track of their fabric, color and design preferences with email.

[lucille]

Originally Posted by hermione

Several years ago, my sister and I kept getting unwanted calls from our stepfather who was bothering us a lot, and a guy from our church suggested "divorcing the phone" and not letting it dominate your life, interrupt dinner, etc.

Before, whenever the phone rang, we felt compelled to pick it up. It took some practice sitting there letting it ring, and then checking the voicemail after we finished whatever it was we were doing. Now we live by the philosophy, "if it's important, they'll leave a message."

Most of our calls are unsolicited and wrong numbers, too, so this saves us a lot of time. I've also blocked text messages, because the cost is ridiculous. It may be $0.15 per message, but including the taxes, one or 2 messages costs almost $2.00 (at least it was a few months ago).

For business, I encourage customers to use email to contact us unless it's an urgent matter, because most of our inquiries are about custom ordering (clothes and costumes for dogs and horses) and it's easier to keep track of their fabric, color and design preferences with email.

Verizon sales kept calling me from the same number. I finally grew tired of them ringing my phone. I'm already a customer and they are running some sales pitch to try to get us to buy new phones. I saved the number in my phone book and then set it to silent ring. Since I don't have voicemail their calls just go to oblivion and don't bother me at all.

[rainysparadigm]

I have vm and caller id, and I save all (well, most) important numbers, both business and personal. I probably actually answer my phone two or three times a week, and that's usually when I'm expecting a call. I let more or less everything go to voicemail, and I sort it out a couple times a week. Usually I go over it if I'm passenger in car, waiting in line, or other useless activities. Have I missed a few relatively important things? Yes. Yet the world hasn't ended. My voicemail message at one time actually said, I'm probably next to the phone thinking 'if it's important, they'll leave a message'.