Steveer Robbins here. Welcome to the Get It Done Guys quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

I'm not in right now, but please leave a message and I'll call you back. At the tone, please record your message.

When you have finished recording, hang up, or press one for more options.

Oh, I love talking to voicemail systems. The synthesized voice

sounds so caring, so genuine. On a busy day, I might make 30 phone calls. Since no one answers

anymore, the voicemail lady talks to me a lot. If we spend 30 seconds exchanging our sweet

nothings, that's up to 15 minutes a day.

That adds up. Figure I do this two and a half days a week. That's half an hour weekly

listening to her say the same thing, over and over. That's 25 hours a year. More than half

of a work week. Three days, half a week, listening to her repeat

her little story, excuse me, but I wouldn't put up with that from my snuggle bunny, much less

an electronic harlot with no respect for my time. Oh, the honeymoon's over, baby. Say something

new or get out of my life. Of course, I would really rather that she just got out of my life.

Back when answering machines were mechanical,

approximately 2 billion people learned to leave their name and number at the beep.

They didn't need the extra instructions, just beep.

Life was good.

Then voicemail companies decided that we needed instructions again.

I don't know. Maybe telephone

company executives were so stupid that they needed step-by-step instructions and didn't realize

that the rest of us had passed second grade with flying colors. We really don't need to waste

half a week a year on this silliness. Now, fortunately, on most voicemail systems, you can skip the

...