In the last few years, I’v noticed a distinct change in the alotment of my daily time.

This change, has largely been without my intention, however I have yeiled to it nonetheless.

I’ve found that the time spent communicating / corresponding with people has increased to a point where I literally can’t get off the phone, or away from the emails.

Ok, so my business has grown and some of this is to be expected, however the ratio of “real work” versus communicating is still wrong.

Stop and think about the myriad ways in which technology allows us to be contacted: Email, Fax, Cellphone, Text, Pxt, Voicemail.

I’ve long had a problem with Voicemail: 

This service takes a call and a message for you when you aren’t able to. (This is essentially a time issue)  When you get back to your phone, on top of having to deal with the usual incoming calls you then have to check the voicemail and respond appropriately.  This usually involves an outgoing call!

All this communicative ability allows people to contact us endlessly, and if you’re not carefull, you can end up doing nothing but responding.

Being a tech-freak I tend to embrace technology and implement it within my lifestyle, however the following has only recently occured to me:

So many forms of communication exist that one has the luxury to choose the form(s) of communication that suits. 

For me this means I have reduced some of the ways in which I now communicate with technology.

I have ruled out texts almost completey. Texting is far too cumbersome and time consuming to be taken seriously. 

My home landline is the only telephone to have a voicemail option (In case of emergencies). 

All my work phones, lines and cell phones (including personal cell phone) have had the voicemail function removed.

Email is great, and I now do a lot of communication this way for one main reason…. I do it when I want to, and thus in my own pace.  It’ not like a phone ringing it’s head off that demands attention immediately.

I’ve found since, that I have less communication “stress” and more time to do it in. 

Likewise I seem to be missing less calls, meaning the lack of voicemail is no issue at all.

If you get bogged down with the communication blues, give this a try - it continues to work for me!