Maybe you like to talk with your clients on the phone. Or maybe you’re like me.

Here are the top reasons I hate client phone calls:

• Calls take too long - Client calls could be handled much quicker in an email. If they’d just send me a message with their request, I could schedule the work in my queue and work more efficiently without interruption.
• Terrible timing - Clients always seem to call right when I’m pushing to meet a deadline.
• No documentation - I’m sick of clients that give a certain set of instructions or feedback over the phone, and then, later, seem to have no recollection of having made the request. If one more client tells me that they didn’t say something when my notes clearly say that they said what they say they didn’t say . . .
• Often unnecessary - I have clients who, even though I’ve promised to deliver something to them on Friday, will call me on Wednesday morning to see if the project is done yet. No, it’s not. It will be done on Friday. Thursday morning, they call again. It’s still not done. Now they’re starting to get frustrated, even though it’s clear in the contract that it will be delivered on Friday. The morning of the deadline rolls around and they’ve already called three times before I even get into the office . . .

Here’s a perfect example. Moments ago, as I was writing this, I took a phone call that my CallerID told me was from a local high school. Apparently an ex-client who thought we were too expensive ($125/hr) has hired someone at the high school to work on their Web site and the kid called me because he needed to know how to access their databases (clear instructions were provided to the client when they went their merry little way).

It’s enough to make me cry. I hope they get their money’s worth out of him.

Well, I found a solution a couple of weeks ago and I’ve put it in place. In fact, the call from the kid a few minutes ago is the first unproductive client phone call I’ve taken in about a week (down from 10 each day).

In the book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss, chapters 5 - 7 all focus on using simplification as a tool for time management. Ferriss says that, instead of working to accomodate more and more in a day, you should work to do less and less.

Ferriss teaches that it’s more productive to do without client phone calls, and suggests changing your voice mail message to direct clients to more efficient contact methods, like email.

At first, I worried I might anger a couple of clients, but then I thought about it for a minute and decided that those clients are going to be angry no matter what, so I might as well let them be angry on their time, without bothering me about it.

I came up with the following script (modified from the example Ferriss gives in his book) feel free to insert your name and use it yourself:

You’ve reached the desk of [your name].

I am currently checking and responding to voicemail each Friday at 4 p.m., Mountain Time.

For a prompter response, my email address is [your email address].

If you need help with a truly urgent matter that cannot wait for an email response, please contact me on my cell phone at [your cell number].

Otherwise, please leave a message and I will return it at the end of the day on Friday. Be sure to leave your email address, as I am often able to respond faster that way.

Thank you.

Now, with this in place, I sit back and screen my calls. When a call comes in, I check the CallerID. If it’s not someone I need to speak with immediately, I let it go to my voicemail.

I can’t tell you how well this has worked. You’d think I’d get nothing but angry people leaving messages, or tons of calls on my cell, but you’re wrong. This week, for example, only two people have left messages (I don’t know if they’re angry or not because I won’t listen to them till 4 p.m., but last week they were vendors who I didn’t want to talk to anyway).

I did get one call on my cell phone earlier in the week, but it was from a client with a truly urgent need. I was glad she called and placed herself in front of everone else.

Here’s the best part. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten an increase in wonderfully articulate emails from clients. They email me now, tell me exactly what they want, and leave me the documentation to prove that they said they wanted it.

I’ve probably freed up about 2 hours a day with this one simple technique.

I highly reccomend Ferriss’s book. He also has scripts for email autoresponders to help streamline those processes, and he lists other great techniques for simplifying your use of time.