Cell phones are the best, worst invention of the 20th century. In 1990, very very few people had cell phones and coverage was pretty iffy even in metropolitan areas. In 1996, my parents bought a bag phone for use when my dad would travel (mostly hunting trips). He would have to drive to the top of the hill near our cabin to get reception, and would pay somewhere around $1.50/minute to talk. Some nights he couldn’t get any reception, and wouldn’t call.

Now, even in Northern Vermont where I live, we can get cell phone coverage in most places (but definitely still not all places). I can’t get cell phone reception in the downstairs of my house, but upstairs it works just fine. There are a couple of competing cell companies up here (Verizon and Cellular One, mainly), and in some places you can get coverage from one but not the other, and vice versa. A lot of people who need to stay connected all the time end up getting two cell phones, one from each company.

But enough babbling about our spotty cell coverage up here in no-man’s-land. Cell phones can either be an excellent tool for productivity or the worst thing that ever happened to your workday. Learning to use your cell phone for good is an important lesson indeed. Here are the basics:

1. Caller ID exists for a reason. Use it to screen your calls. No one will know why you didn’t pick up, promise. And this brings us to,

2. Voice mail also exists for a reason. Those calls that you screened using your caller ID will go to your voice mail, and if it’s important, that person will leave you a message. Make a point to return phone calls within 24 hours (except on weekends). If you’re worried about something being really important, just check your voice mail immediately after the caller hangs up. If it’s that important you can just call them right back.

3. Make sure you get a cell plan that allows you to roll over minutes. Then get the highest number of minutes practical for you. Anything you don’t use will go to the next month, and you won’t have to worry about overages. This means that you won’t be looking at your watch while you’re on the phone with your biggest client (or your boss).

4. Learn to turn it off. When you’re in a restaurant, movie theater, library, or other public gathering place, turn your phone off. No one wants to hear you talking about your latest project, last night’s date, or how sick your mother has been. They really don’t care, and you’re only pissing them off. Phones have an off button for a reason. Use it. If you can’t bring yourself to turn your phone off, at least put it on vibrate and excuse yourself (ie, go outside) if you have to answer it.

5. Buy a hands-free setup for your car. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing someone not paying attention to what they’re doing while driving because they’re busy talking on their cell phone. How’s it going to sound to that big client that you’re trying to sign when you get into a fender bender (or worse) while on the phone with them? They invented hands-free systems for a reason - get one and use it. Many states (including Vermont) have either made talking on cell phones illegal while driving or are in the process of banning it. I couldn’t be happier!

6. Use your cell phone to read the news and blog feeds you subscribe to. I wouldn’t recommend doing this if you have a super-tiny cell phone screen, but if you have a newer smart phone or similar, you shouldn’t have an issue doing this. Mobispine offers free mobile feeds, with almost 20,000 feeds active (including this one, right under the bookmark button and above the tag cloud on the right). You can also add feeds for any of your favorite blogs, whether they have a Mobispine account or not.

Cell phones are tools, and should be treated as such. While they can be incredibly annoying if used improperly, they’re also excellent for increasing your productivity if make them work for you.

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Web Worker Daily is one of my favorite resources for everything having to do with online business. I just came across an article in the archives from last fall (I only started reading them a couple months ago) titles “Going Bedouin“, complete with their recipe for doing so (it basically consists of a laptop, cell phone, mailing address, a space - or spaces - to work in, and a host of web-based applications for keeping track of everything).

The basic idea is that as companies (especially tech companies) grow larger, they tend to overinflate, which usually leads to their demise. As they move into the posh new offices, they become more conservative, more constrained, and much less likely to innovate. Going Bedouin, on the other hand, leaves you with pretty much all of your options open. If you can fit your entire company’s infrastructure into a backpack, you know you’re on the right track.

Having mobility can be essential for a small business. It leaves you with many more opportunities to make changes, to grow and transform as your business changes, and with much lower overhead (and therefore higher profits). Which would you prefer? A luxury office (complete with reflecting pool and Zen garden) and constantly having to worry about making the rent (or mortgage)? Or would you rather have a small but functional office with the flexibility to pack up and work from the beach in Brazil for a month at a moment’s notice? How about the option to work from home for a couple weeks? Or taking in twice the profits because your overhead is nil? Personally, I’d prefer the last three.

And if you really need the Zen garden, get one of the little one’s that sits on your desk (and throw in an Itty Bitty Buddha while you’re at it).

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Nothing could be better than getting paid for doing something you already do.

Agloco is a new company that is going to pay members for surfing the internet. The only catch is that you have to download their “viewbar” (a little sidebar that sits at the bottom of your browser) that displays ads. It’s not spyware, so you don’t have to worry about it stealing your information. And, Agloco also pays you for people you refer who download the viewbar, and those that they refer. You can build up a pretty good size network (John Chow has more than 14,000 people in his Agloco network).

The viewbar is still in beta testing at the moment, but you can go and sign up for a free account and start referring people to build your network.

I just love anything where you can get paid for doing things that you already do. It’s as close to free money as you’re going to get.

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