7 Ways Cell Phones Can Organize Your Work at Home Life

These days, it seems no one leaves home without their cellphone. As work-at-home professionals, we have so much going on in our daily lives, that it’s easy to use our cell phones as our primary organizational tool. Unfortunately, many cellphones have features that never get used at all. We’re going to show you seven simple ways a cellphone can help you keep your work-at-home job more organized.

*Set unique ringtones for each major contact*

Know who’s calling without looking at the phone. For each major contact, such as clients, your spouse, child’s school or daycare, doctors, co-workers, etc. set a different ringtone. Whatever you choose to use is up to you; just make sure you can keep track of who’s who with the ringtones you set. You can grab free ringtones pay for real music ringtones or make your own. If you have an iPhone, sync iTunes with your contacts.

*Use your address book*

For contacts you use frequently but don’t receive calls from, such as the local pizza delivery company, the salon, and the pharmacy, keep them in the address book. This will save you time, because you won’t have to look them up in the phone book or remember their phone numbers. To keep things organized, you can create groups in the address book, too. You can even take the advice from our first tip one step further and customize a ringtone for each group, in case the pizza place has to call you back. Learn more on how to setup groups for BlackBerry, iPhone, LG Shine, and HTC Ringo Mobile software.

*Use your calendar to keep track of appointments*

Take time to place appointments in your cellphone or web-hosed calendar like Google Calendar. This way, you can glance at the calendar each day to get an idea of what needs to be done and when. Your phone will send you a reminder about the appointment at a time you choose, usually all the way up to 15 minutes before the appointment. This is especially helpful for work-at-home parents who have multiple appointments and people to account for. Set your reminders with enough time to get to each appointment though, because getting a reminder 15 minutes before you’re supposed to be in the doctor’s office isn’t always enough time to make the drive.

*Use your alarm feature*

Set alarms on the phone to get up in the morning, to remember to take medication, or to remember to get dinner out of the oven. Many cellphones have the ability to store more than one alarm and to choose a repeat frequency such as: Everyday, Monday through Friday, Once, or Never. When setting up the alarms, be sure to choose the frequency that works best for you, or expect to be bothered the following day when it’s no longer applicable.

*Use the voice recorder to record reminders*

Most new cellphones feature some sort of voice recorder. Use the voice recorder to record reminders like, “We need bread, milk, and eggs from the grocery store,” or “Reminder: Make reservations for dinner on Monday night.” These voice recordings will save to your phone for you to review later. Most phones do not allow for more than 30 seconds of recording time per note, so keep this in mind as you record. If you need something more powerful, consider using a voice-to-text service (see our review of Jott) that syncs with other mobile and web-based apps to become a cloud computing workaholic.

*Use the notepad or text messaging to take notes while out*

While you’re out and about running errands or spending time with family, if an important phone call comes through or you see something you want to remember later, use the notepad, or a draft text message —whichever you prefer— to make note of it. When things slow down a bit and you get time, go through the notes or messages to remember what you noted. This works better than the voice recorder when there are large numbers of people around.

*Keep a to-do list on the notepad*

Remember more than just your appointments. Keep a to-do list each day on your notepad or with a task management app like Remember the Milk. If you need to keep a strict timeline, you can use the calendar to schedule each task of the day. As you accomplish things, cross them off the list. Taking time to setup a to-do list each night will help you see just how much you can get done in a day and significantly improve your time management and make it easier to get things done in the long run.

Whether you use all seven of these tips, or just a few of them, you can be sure you’ll become a more organized work-at-home professional.

About the Author: Caitlin Douglass is a freelance writer that specializes in technology, productivity and mobile news. Caitlin is available for content development at caitlin.douglass [at] gmail.com.

Burn Fat, Help the World

Its an odd fact of life that we’re more likely to do something we don’t like to help someone else, than we are to do it for ourselves. If you’re that type of person, the Plus3Network.com is for you. The site connects sponsors who will pay the charity of your choice for each mile that you bike, run, walk or swim (more exercise options such as tennis and gym time are coming). Simply choose your cause (many to choose from including Breast Cancer Research, Project Rwanda, and The Environmental Defense Fund), log in your miles, and your charity is paid through sponsors.

You can help raise even more money by inviting your friends to join and organizing teams and/or events.

The best part is that each time your exercise, you aren’t only improving your health, but you’re helping to raise money for a worthy cause. Learn more at Plus3Network.com.

IT Support Isn’t Just for When Things Go Wrong

During my vacation my blog went down. The situation was made worse by the fact that I was not staying in a place with wi-fi. It took me half a day to get to a location (a library) to get online to figure out what happened. Even worse, the fix was more complicated and time consuming than I wanted to deal with. So I paid someone to fix it for me. But had I had IT support on board already, it would have discovered and fixed the problem leaving me free to enjoy my vacation.

So how do you find great IT support?  IT Support Los Angeles has a great article on “6 Things You Need to Know When Choosing a Partner for IT Support and IT Consulting”. It not only emphasizes the importance of accessible help personnel when needed, but also having your systems monitored and issues resolved remotely when needed.

In fact, I wish I lived in the Los Angeles area as IT consulting Los Angeles has a great maintenance care program that could have saved me time, hassle and worry while I was on vacation. In small business, there is so much focus on marketing, sales and product or service delivery, that often the maintenance of systems is overlooked…until it goes down. Although we know technology can cause problems, we don’t anticipate them or have safe guards for when they go on the fritz. The problem is that when technology does fail, often everything else about the business comes to a stop.

But with a resources such as the Dependable Computer Guys of LA, your IT systems can be monitored and serviced to avoid problems that can put your business on hold. It provides a team of IT people who provide weekly maintenance on servers and systems, remote support for servers and work stations, and they can even assess your company’s need to determine the best IT solutions to maximize your business. It is an ideal resource for small business computer service in the Los Angeles area.