7 Tools People use Before Resorting to the Phone Book

Finding a phone number used to be such a simple thing. Grab the phone book, look up the person or company’s name, and find the number. The phone books are still there, but it seems that I will try a lot of different ways to find the number that I need before actually blowing the dust off one of them and flipping it open to search. Here are 7 tools that I use to find a phone number before resorting to the phone book.

1. Cell Phone Contacts List. If the person or business that I wish to contact is one that I’ve spoken to or done business with before, I always look in my cell phone contacts for their number first. Even if I’m 99% certain that it won’t be there, I can’t help looking, just in case. Perhaps I’m hoping that elves or brownies have entered my room over night and magically entered whatever contact information I need while I was sleeping.
2. Spouse or other Housemate. Once I’ve determined that the phone number I wish to call is not among my mobile phone contacts, the next tool that I use is my voice. For some reason, even when I know that it is unlikely that my spouse is going to have the number and contact information that I want, I still have to ask. It’s always possible that the elves entered the information in the wrong phone, isn’t it?
3. Desk Drawer/Bookshelf/Glove Box. I’m a chronic collector of personal and business cards. I hate to throw them away, but I’m lousy at transferring the information into my phone or keeping them organized. This means that there is also some tiny possibility that I may have a business card with the information that I need. So, before resorting to the phone book, I will spend a significant fraction of an hour searching the piles of cards on my bookshelves, rifling through my desk drawers, and tearing everything out of the glove box in my car. Time management is apparently not one of my long suits.
4. Colleagues and Coworkers. If the phone number that I need is for a business contact, I will often call a coworker to see if he or she has the number that I’m looking for. This can be done while standing next to the passenger side door of my car, looking at the mess of stuff on the floor that used to be in the glove box. It makes sense to call from this location because there is plenty of paper scraps laying around for note-taking, in case the coworker has the information I seek.
5. Search Engine. Before resorting to the phone book, I always do a Yahoo! people or business search. This often takes more effort and time than simply looking in a phone book would take. Once again, the time management beast rears its ugly head to laugh at me.
6. Online Directory. There are white and yellow pages online, and I consider myself successful in having avoided the actual paper-based book if I find the number that I need in this fashion. Yes, I do understand that it’s a pretty fine hair to split in order to declare victory, and I’m okay with that.
7. Directory Assistance. I know that it costs money to use directory assistance, these days. I also understand that this is equivalent to having someone else look it up in the book for me. If there is no dust from a phone book on my fingers when I finally make the call I’ve wanted to make, it counts as success in my way of keeping tally.

So, an hour or so after the urge to make a call has arrived, I have the number that I need, and I haven’t used that old, dusty phone book. Of course, now I can’t remember why I wanted to make that call in the first place.

Taken From DSL Service Providers