Saving Time Looking for Phone Numbers
Posted on December 31, 2010 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Lifehacks
I’m taking a break this week. This article was first published on 23 August 2007.
A friend of mine asked me for the phone number for my mechanic…for the fourth time in as many weeks. She writes down phone numbers in various places, and never has them with her when she needs them.
If you have a central place to keep your phone numbers that is always with you, you will never face this situation.
Why Consolidate Phone Number?
If you have all of your numbers in one place, you will never have to search. You will know where those numbers are, and be able to retrieve them without hunting. This can save you time and effort.
Best Practices
I’m not going to go into where is the best place to keep numbers. You can do it in a PDA, a cell phone, a planner, or even a little notebook. As long as they are together, you will always know where to look.
This can take a bit of thinking, though, particularly if you have lists of called numbers in multiple places. My main repository for phone numbers is in Google Contacts, which syncs automatically with my iPod Touch. But the phone numbers on my cell phone don’t get updated automatically. So I make sure once a month I go through my cell phone contacts and add those numbers to my Google Contacts.
Additional Tips
One of my colleagues recently dropped his cell phone in the ocean. All his phone numbers were in there, and the service place was able to transfer only half of them to his new phone. If you use an electronic system to capture your phone numbers, try printing out a copy to leave at home. It keeps other family members for asking for phone numbers, and can serve as a backup if your electronic device malfunctions.
Photo by How can I recycle this
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