Use Case: How Google Voice Can Help With a Busy Life
We all lead busy lives and life can be hectic, life can bring changes and life can bring a lot of distraction and noise.
This could be noise from prior life efforts like applying for loans, job hunting, purchasing a house or vehicle, telemarketers, etc.
And noise can lead to life distractions, add to stress and increase anxiety
Business Flow: How Businesses Handle Noise From Flow Traffic and Create Information Flow
So a small business or organization typically can make do with a single or handful of phone lines or maybe a sole proprietor uses a cell phone or carries a second phone to separate business or pleasure. And maybe there is a single email address or a handful for people that work there. And some businesses stop here.
But as businesses grow, the amount of contact with the outside world grows, and the type of inquiries and the number a business has to handle increases. As this continues, a business could end up hiring people who mirror the work of the people there, but at some point that requires coordination and orchestration.
The business might hire a receptionist and as time goes on a manager who can manage the office overall or multiple leads or managers to manage or lead different groups. As this happens flows and routes of communication are created.
Say you have the people who actually make the product or perform the service. You don’t want people calling them directly so you hire an appointments manager who directs calls and schedules whoever is available. If there is a sales group, someone could be in charge of sales over the group and each salesperson has a dedicated phone number primarily for sales.
So by categorizing and routing this incoming traffic, the pressure on the business to handle things all at once becomes more manageable.
This categorization creates areas of responsibility attached to each phone number and each phone number has a dedicated purpose. Of course in a phone system, that purpose could be to provide a phone menu, further controlling the flow of communication.
Common categories you might see could include sales, technical support, management, appointment management among others.
How can Google Voice Help Me Control My Incoming Flow of Communication?
Google Voice will give you a free phone number (if available) and the number comes with its own text messaging. I would recommend anyone consider getting a matching email address for each line of communication you get a number for. Google Voice supports having multiple accounts/numbers on a phone, but only one outgoing Google Voice number.
Two main advantages of Google Voice are:
- You can use it from your laptop or PC
- You can install the app on your existing mobile phone
- You can do both and access your text messages from your PC or latop
There are many scenarios where a Google Voice account will make your life easier.
- You want to separate your mobile professional and community life from your personal life
- You have a specific life campaign you’re working on like job hunting, house hunting or a business
- Google also has a business level of service available through Google Voice
- You do different kinds of gig work and want to separate each line of work from one another and your personal life. This can also help with personal branding.
- You need a phone number temporarily and what you’re working on has an end date
- You can share the same Google Voice number between phones
- You can use the service from you PC or Laptop. So if you shut down you laptop or PC for day, your work on that effort ends.
- You can put that specific Google Voice number on Do Not Disturb and still receive your regular calls
How Does That Translate Into the Real World Using Google Voice?
- You want a way to funnel your incoming calls
- For example, you volunteer or are an officer with a volunteer organization – you have a specific number that helps you filter and identify your calls
- You own a business or you gig and you want a separate line
- I was a foster parent and wanted to focus on calls from social services during adoption time.
- You can install Google Voice on another family member’s phone and give it out for areas of shared responsibility, like a number for your kid’s school, doctor or as a shared emergency number
- This is why companies have a phone system and specific sales and support numbers
- Your effort has an end date
- Say you’re applying for loans, shopping for houses, cars, looking for work, etc – this is a line you can either ignore or shut off – no more sales calls, calls from loan officers, recruiters, etc
- Another option is that phone number becomes your career number / work number / professional point of contact. This is a branding opportunity as you can put them on your business card.
- Caveat: remember to remove your phone number from your online job-hunting accounts and resumes. It’s just polite. I was thinking that it would be harmful for recruiters, but shutting this off could be of help since you’re not looking for a new job.
- Say you’re applying for loans, shopping for houses, cars, looking for work, etc – this is a line you can either ignore or shut off – no more sales calls, calls from loan officers, recruiters, etc
- You have an ambiguous phone number or area code or need a local number.
- I live in the 850 area code but have an 805 cell phone number. A local area code could helps solve that ambiguity.
- It also helps keep you from being screened out if you’re contacting someone and they screen you out because you don’t have a local area code.
Considerations Using Google Voice
- Consider getting this Google Voice number it’s own Google Account if you didn’t already get an account, email address or services as part of your life management services. If you have an existing email account you are using to manage this part of your life, it would be a great candidate to use to create your Google Account.
- If your phone is already being bombarded by all your ghosts of life efforts past, consider making the voice number your new personal number.
- Under settings on the Android App, there is an option to Screen Calls. On my device, it was set to on and will prompt callers for their name before connecting. You can use this to well, screen your calls. You may not want this feature on
- If you own a business you can pay to get a business number with dedicated support.
- If this number goes idle, Google will release it.
- You must pair a different phone number with each Google Voice account.
How Can I Use Google Voice With Other Services To Enhance These Flows and Compartmentalize The Concerns in My Life
Use Google Services and Accounts in Conjunction With Google Voice
Using other Google services is a natural complement to Google Voice, particularly if you start by creating a new account specifically for use with this number or you use the account for other Google Services.
- Consider getting a matching email address. Again, if you do and it’s not Gmail, use this email address to create your Google account
- If you like video calls, you can use Google Meets and only use it as part of your mission with this phone. Meets is limited at the free level to one hour calls.
- If you create this Google account, you can use Google Docs and Drive to manage all of your concerns related to the reasons you created this number in one spot.
- This in effect creates kind of a mini-enterprise for all aspects of this facet of your life.
- This creates what’s called a separation of concerns
- This account is all about getting a house, a loan or a job
- This account is only for communication with family
- This account is only for your personal life
- This creates what’s called a separation of concerns
- This in effect creates kind of a mini-enterprise for all aspects of this facet of your life.
You can look for a Google Voice Number here: Google Voice.
And all this serves to declutter and denoise your life.
Note: I am relatively new to Google Voice, so I would recommend care and learning about any other risks before adopting or bringing any new technology into your life.