Smart Use of Your iPhone: Separating Business From Personal

With over 10 million people self-employed and with the number of telecommuters increasing, working from one’s iPhone is not only popular, but it’s also a necessity. While using an iPhone is convenient for business and personal use, it’s crucial to keep the two separate for the sake of professionalism and security. Here are some tips for separating work from play:

Staying Connected

Whether you are a freelance writer working from home or run your own startup, it’s often expected that you stay connected even if you can’t connect face-to-face with your colleagues or clients. While good connectivity is crucial for your own success, it’s also okay to create your own schedule. When you rely on your iPhone for all of your work, from phone calls to emails, it’s easy to answer requests at all times of the day, however, if you want to see any separation between work and personal life, set hours and stick to them. For example, make yourself available between 8 and 5, Monday through Friday, and limit or eliminate your use on the weekends.

Don’t know how to disconnect when you need to? Some fellow professionals recommend turning off push notifications or setting the phone to airplane mode during personal time, such as dinner.

Getting a Second Line

When all calls, personal and professional, are directed to one line, it’s hard to ignore them when they roll in on the weekends or at night. Answering at the wrong time or assuming it’s a personal call when it’s a business call, can come across as unprofessional. By adding a second line, such as the Sideline app, is an easy way to have two numbers without the hassle of having more than one phone. You can select your own number (from a list) or even use an existing one. Another nice feature is that you don’t have to worry about having a wi-fi connection for the app to work, so you can receive calls (and voicemails) when you are not connected.

Having Help Without the Need to Hire

In a perfect world, everyone, despite their personal or professional level of success, would have their own personal assistant to answer and redirect phone calls. eVoice offers comparable services at the fraction of the cost of cutting a paycheck. Whether you need voicemail, call forwarding, large volume of conference calls, or even a receptionist, eVoice makes it easier to keep work and play separate.

Consider Separate Browsers

You’re having a nice relaxing Saturday morning of drinking coffee, reading an online casino review before you dive into a game of online poker, and cooking brunch when a phone call comes in. It’s an important client, so you answer. When you look up his file online, your browser soon becomes filled with a chaotic mess of business and personal stuff. Rather than closing all of the “soon to be resumed on a Saturday” tabs, stick to one browser for business and one for personal. It will keep you better organized and might be easier to make a mental separation as well.