I’m seeing a lot of Smartphone tips published lately, so am jumping on the bandwagon and adding one of my own. And since I’m suchan advocate of simplicity, mine is a very simple one. It even works on any cellphone, not just Smartphones.
When setting up any kind of off-site meeting, appointment, or date, send the person you’re meeting your cellphone number. When they send theirs back (which everyone does, if you write “in case anything comes up, here’s my mobile number”), put it into your cellphone. It takes about 20 seconds, and if something goes wrong – either on your part or theirs – you have a very easy way to reach them.
If you don’t want their number stored permanently you can always erase it after the meeting (I usually store one-time numbers in the “Temp” category, and just clean them out when I’m stuck in a waiting room.)
I thought most people did this already, but am realizing that’s not true. If people sync their phones with their desktop contacts, and everyone puts their mobile phone numbers in their contact info, this becomes automatic, but it’s clear to me (from seeing and hearing other people in public) that this isn’t the case right now.
I know this isn’t extremely specific to our software or our site, but it’s such a simple way to avoid problems, it seemed worth mentioning.