Phone calls are an absolute distraction. I hate them vehemently. Focus is the most important part of any job, particularly for a designer who needs to always access an aesthetic sense relative to the overall scale of a project. This requires an enormous amount of focus in order to obtain great results.

It’s not realistic to avoid phone calls during a work day. They are a part of the job and unavoidable in the completion of tasks. However, I would encourage anyone to keep phone conversations to a minimum, both in their professional life and personal one.

Assess whether a particular phone call is vital or not. If it can wait, make a note to do it later. If it can’t wait, set an amount of time to be on that call and when to hang up. Even better, politely alert your caller of that time at the beginning of the conversation. Otherwise, it can be far too easy to allow an hour to slip away. Not only will you have lost that time spent on the phone, but you will lose additional time catching up with messages in your inbox.

Remember that life is short and days are shorter. Every second is precious and we need to capitalize on each and every one.