Setting Boundaries: Personal Cell Phone
"Only five people have my personal cell phone number. Everyone else has a number that routes through OpenPhone."
I was shocked. Everyone has my personal cell phone number, and I absolutely do not want to carry around two phones. I can manage some workarounds allowing exceptions to 'do not disturb' mode on my iPhone, but hearing more about how I can use OpenPhone or similar apps, incorporate it into my productivity methods, and allow access to a team member when I'm on vacation were really eye opening.
Clients, employees, colleagues, etc. won't know it's not a regular cell phone number so they'll still feel like they have access
Get your voicemails sent to email with transcription and triage them with your emails
Even better: don't let calls interrupt your workflow, schedule a designated time each day (or 2-3 times per day) to check missed calls and voicemails (ideally you're already doing this with email and now you're just eliminating calls from interrupting your workflow too) . Triage them like you do emails, should I deal with this now, schedule it for later, or delegate it.
Set call flows including business hours, a phone menu if you want options to get to other team members, and determine how you receive incoming call notifications and voicemail. You can even set incoming message auto-replies during or after business hours if you know people will expect a more immediate response.
You can share phone numbers with team members or share your log-in credentials when you'll be out of town, truly allowing you to disconnect knowing someone else is monitoring your phone.
There are many ways to use a tool like OpenPhone, Ring Central, Google Voice, etc. If you're a business owner or a team lead, there are some great options, but it can be a simple tool to give you back control, freedom, and create boundaries. No one calling you would know anything is different, but you'd be surprised at how much peace of mind you'll receive when you can actually shut off work and have a system for keeping up or delegating.
My Painful Case Study
I was on a much-needed vacation, set my email vacation responder, and had neatly delegated everything I could think of. I was off to St. Lucia feeling relaxed, at peace, and confident in a disconnected trip. While there, I received a phone call from a client that I'd allowed free-reign access to my time because I hadn't set any boundaries with them and had no mechanisms in place to shield me from my own lack of boundary setting. This person called and texted me on nights and weekends with carefree abandon. All of these calls and text messages came to my personal cell phone number, so even though I wasn't trying to check email or work calls, I saw the missed Sunday evening call while I was on vacation. Just seeing their name pop up on my phone had started initiating feelings of frustration. Each time it happened it's like I started at a level of frustration that was a culmination of all previous times, making each time worse than the next. I found myself reeling for a few hours, frustrated with the lack of boundaries and how I was feeling. I was able to easily let a team member back home know the client needed a call and what the answer to the questions they had were. But if I'd been using OpenPhone at the time, I could've turned all notifications from my work line off, actually logged off of the platform, and had all calls route to a member of my team or share my login credentials so they could routinely check messages while I was out. I would have avoided the frustration that bubbled up
Lessons Learned:
I had not set proper boundaries with this client from the get-go and they had free access to me 24/7. I needed to reset with this client AND ensure I set boundaries for all clients current and future.
I had no way to totally disconnect, even when I'd done everything possible to prepare for a disconnected vacation. I needed to implement a new system