Like for many people, my life used to be pretty compartmentalized. There was work time, family time, errand time and recreation time. Hours of the day and days of the week used to be clearly defined as to who I was and what I was doing at a given time. For better or for worse, and probably worse, technology has changed all of that. The fact that we don’t need to be chained to a desk to wait for work related phone calls gives us the flexibility of getting home earlier to our families, being at events or places that we might not otherwise be able to attend and doing more personal stuff like for me, playing basketball on a Friday morning at 7:30 am. Ah, the sweet joy and liberty of owning a mobile phone. I’m now reachable by anyone and everyone at any time of day. Wait a second. I never wanted that!
It’s amazing how many people who would have never thought of calling me at home on my land line past 9:00 pm don’t even think twice about dialing me up on my cell. I’m guilty of doing it myself. That barrier of privacy we once had before cell phones has been broken. When you called someone’s house phone or place of business, there was unwritten protocol of appropriate times to make contact. Cell phones have blurred the lines between the different parts of our lives making work sometimes not always feel like work and making family or personal time not always feel so personal. And while I don’t feel the need to return to the days of a regimented schedule to tell me when it’s time for work and when it’s time for play, it would certainly be great to get a little of that life compartmentalization back. I recently discovered an app for my mobile phone called Flyp that helps with that endeavor.
The free app from Flyp (for the first phone number you assign), allows me to create a phone number that isn’t attached to my identity. I can give the number to people who I may not know well or at stores that routinely use a mobile phone number as a substitute for a discount savings card. The number of telemarketing calls I get on my cell phone seems to have grown exponentially over the last couple of years and I can only believe that it is a result of the number of stores to which I blindly relinquished my cell phone number. With Flyp, I may still get telemarketing calls, but it will least be on a number that I can easily screen and not have identification safety issues that I need to be concerned about.
As if me and my wife, along with most other parents out there didn’t have enough things in life to worry about already, we now also need to be concerned about the safety of our children having cell phones and potentially giving out their personal number to the wrong person. Whether parents know it or not, kids often post their phone numbers on social media which can lead to disastrous outcomes. Flyp allows you to create a “safe number” in case your children ever need to give out their number.
The feature for me on Flyp that I like best is the ability to separate my personal life from other types of phone calls. I can mute the specific Flyp number I don’t want to receive phone calls from and keep my primary cell phone number still active and audible to get calls that I do want. By the way, in no way is this a suggestion that Flyp users might want to give that second phone number to a family member that you just wish wasn’t one.
Currently, I just have one Flyp number for myself, but users can have multiple numbers on one smartphone, with their own title, ringtone and voicemail so you can easily recognize which part of your life is calling without even having to look. After the first phone number, it costs just $2.99 per month for each additional phone number. There are different plans to choose from, each with varying limitations on the number of inbound and outbound minutes of phone usage during the month.
So if you are one of those people who is quick to answer your cellphone any time it rings and then often regret it after you did, the Flyp app could be a really good tool for you to help manage those situations a little better. You no longer need to flip out with the unwanted calls when you enlist the help of Flyp.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Flyp but the opinions expressed in the article are 100% my own.
Role Mommy 3.0