Time is the most precious thing in business. As busy business people, the one constant is time. What I mean by that is that everyone has 24 hours in a day 365 days a year. I have 24 hours and you have 24 hours. A technique that I use daily is the phone conference. A phone conference is a predetermined time in the future where two or three people initiate a call about a specified topic. Voice mails if used improperly could possibly be the most painful invention of the century. If I receive a voice mail that says,  ”A please call B back. Thanks.” What is the purpose of that stupid message? Wasting my time to have to make another call in the future. Use email if I am not answering my phone. There is an exception to this rule. Friends. Not a problem. I want to call them back but if a business person says call me back and I am now aware of the nature of the call I am setting myself up for failure. NOTE TO SELF - USE A PHONE CONFERENCE. This phone meeting allows four important things to be accomplished. (1) You stop playing phone tag. (2) You control the length of the meeting. (3) You can prepare for the call so it is more productive. (4) You can avoid unnecessary conversation because all parties are in agreement about the expectation of the call. Try it.AH