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I asked Brian Jarvis to share communications tips for a situation I have no doubt arises at the worst possible time: losing your phone or contacts. Great ideas in this post that everyone who has a cell phone can use:
While traveling on business recently, my iPhone suddenly went blank. Pressing the touch screen produced only blurry lines. Facing a full schedule of meetings the next day, I had no laptop, no car, and no Apple Store within 100 miles. Epic fail, anyone?
Let’s face it. Sooner or later your smartphone may go kaput. You might drop it one too many times, or leave it on the floor of a cab. Or it could be snatched out of your hands, as happened to my former roommate while on a bus. Cell phone theft is on the rise; so is nomophobia.
The only thing worse than losing your smartphone is being unprepared. Consider the following four steps to save yourself a coronary if it does happen:
1) BUY A BACKUP PHONE
I used an old Nokia flip-screen to survive four months in Europe last year, where exorbitant data roaming charges kept my iPhone at bay. Cheapo cells are indeed cheap: Samsung’s Entro costs $11.99, for example, and Virgin Mobile offers 400 minutes/15¢ texts at $20 per month with no contract.
When traveling, keep your backup in a separate compartment of your suitcase, and if needed you can activate it from a landline or a retail outlet. You might not have email or apps, but you can at least make calls and send texts.
Even if your service provider is willing to overnight you a new phone, that’s still a full day of going without. Plus you may have to visit a specialty store to set it up and retrieve your data. If you’re like me, 24 phone-less hours can feel like a lifetime.
2) KEEP YOUR CONTACTS CLOSE
I can count on one hand the phone numbers I have memorized. Thanks to cloud storage, it’s easier than ever to access data remotely. But that won’t help in the short term if you don’t have another device handy, not to mention a Wi-Fi’d coffee shop.
You need a hard copy of your most important contacts on paper
Or get a paper personal phone and address book and keep it updated!
Yes you can still buy paper address books.
Or try this old-school tactic: Type a list of all your important contacts and print out their numbers on a single page. It may sound like a lot of work, but I finished in 20 minutes. Keep it with your backup cell. Now there’s no excuse to go incommunicado.
3. STAY ON (TEXT) MESSAGE
In 2012, chances are that you text-message far more than you talk to live voices. When my iPhone died, the worst part was the inability to send those last-minute texts we take for granted (“Stuck in traffic”, “Be there in 10″, “You awake?”, etc.).
I borrowed a friend’s laptop and took to the social networks to announce my no-phone blues, only to find that most of my contacts don’t checks tweets and FB messages every five minutes. Texts, however, are guaranteed. So if you have another device equipped for messaging, such as an iPad with iOS 5, get it set up before your trip.
There are Web sites and services that let you send text messages from a PC.
Sign up for one now – and test to make sure it works by confirming you can
send to our most important contacts and they receive what you sent.
4) DON’T GAMBLE ON INSURANCE
Reviews on cell phone insurance are mixed. Premiums often cost less than a monthly latte, but replacement phones may require deductibles or come refurbished. Regardless of what’s in the fine print, knowing that you’re fully backed up will relieve the pressure of making spot decisions—such as whether to spend an hour dealing with your service provider in the middle of a hectic workday, or whether to keep praying that a kindhearted soul returns the Droid you left in a bathroom stall (maybe try texting your lost phone from your backup?).
Once the stress wears off, you’ll be in a better place to decide
if it’s worth it to cough up $400 for a brand newbie with 64GB,
or get by with a cheaper model until your contract expires.
It goes without saying that you should sync your data before traveling. But there’s a difference between general backup and immediate backup, and we live in an immediate world. So back yourself up—immediately.
Today’s GrowMap guest writer Brian Jarvis is a communications consultant in San Francisco. Find out what a communications consultant has to offer by clicking Brian’s name. You can follow him on Twitter @BCJstudios
FIND YOUR PHONE
- LifeHacker: Five Best Phone Recovery Tools
- PCMag: How to Find a Lost Cell Phone
- LifeHacker: Find your cell phone with Google Maps’ click-to-call
- HackCollege: How to Survive Losing Your Phone
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No matter how much you care, your phones wear out. And smart phones take so many aspect of your life in their own care that you forget, if it wouldn’t be there what would you do. So the tips you provided are great. Thanks
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March 15, 2013 at 12:49 pm
This is the easiest way of data storage
thnx for such a useful info
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Losing cell phone the biggest thing people do is to gamble with insurance that is the biggest reason I have travel to many countries and some of them I have seen they wont insured cell phone as it a rotten matter of cell phone misplacement.
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I have never lost a mobile phone, although around 1999, I did put my jeans in the wash with my new Nokia 3210 in the pocket.
The screen went completely black and it never worked again. Also the soap powder made the sim connections tarnish and I couldn’t retrieve my contacts. I strongly advise anyone who is thinking of washing their phone on a 40 degree cotton wash to reconsider…
Thanks for your valuable post. I think it is a good decision to keep our android secure. I hope this post is helpful for us.
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As i am using Samsung Galaxy S2 i have installed phone tracker appliction on it so at the time of misplacing my mobile it can be helpful.Also this post has some great views. Take complete back up of your important data so that it will be helpful.
This is such great advice…especially coming from someone who just lost their phone! I keep meaning to back up my phone contacts and information, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Thank you for including some extra tips as well! These will come in handy!
Suggest if you’re a Microsoft Outlook user, and an android smart phone user (probably works w/ apple too but I don’t know), buying software like “companion synchronize” which allows you to sync Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendar etc to Google, which in turn automatically updates the android device (practically on a real time basis). This has been a boon for me, I use my smart phone as my business line. By using this method, my hard drive (which is backed up in multiple ways) and Outlook are always my “contacts and calendar host” and synching is a matter of clicking a button on my desk top to sync my phone to mirror Outlook. It’s much easier to type in the contact details onto my desk top into Outlook, than directly on my phone, and I also don’t have to worry about Google’s servers (not that that’s necessarily a concern) because I control my data on my desk top. This system eliminates the need to keep a manual back up which would require updating two data sets – the phone and the back up. Thank you for the suggestion about a back up phone, that is a great idea.
i guess android mobile phones or Iphone is better then these smart phones !
Thank you
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I guess the old-school methods are still the best. Have a backup of your contacts somewhere on your laptop or another phone. Insure. And most importantly, having a physical backup of the important contacts is an absolute must. I do this every time I need to travel.
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I have this awesome app installed on my jailbroken iPhone (thank goodness the boyfriend’s a techie) once the wrong passcode is placed it immediately takes a photo of the one holding your phone and send the location and photo to your email. It’s definitely a helpful tool!
If you use Nokia mobile phone you can store your backup data into your Notebook or Desktop computer its easy.You can do this by install a PC suite software LG or Nokia,if you have Nokia or LG mobile phone there are a lots of software in the world for mobile backup.They store all kind of data like mobile number photograph even reminder also.IF you connect your phone and restore them it will be done within a minute.
I cannot afford to lose all my contacts, which is why I find your tips amazing. I will try to have a back up plan as soon as possible, so I can make sure that I can keep those important files safe. Thanks a lot!
The only thing I’m scared of when I lose my phone is that all my important information is on there (facebook/paypal/skype) I put on a password, but I still don’t think that will stop someone from getting into it. Thank’s for the tips though.
You’re right. Most especially to the career type of people, if they lost their phone, it will be like a doomsday for them as it contains all their contact and some files. Good points! Thanks for sharing this blog!
Due to the development in digital life, many threats to the gadgets is on the rise. Therefore, it has become mandatory to protect your smartphones.
I will definitely follow your tips here. Most especially in my case that my phone is my life line to most of what I do, I’ll consider having a back up phone. Thanks you so much for sharing this blog
Nice post related to back up of smart phone. Actually I also want backup of my iphone and believe me this article helps me a lot. Thanks for sharing the post.
My old phone was stolen in June, and I had to use my insuarance to get a new one. It was a constant back and forth calling the company, asking for a replacement, etc. But it’s worth the hassle. At least I didn’t have to pay $400 in cell phone bills.
it just takes seconds to transfer the contacts & other important stuff to transfer into your Computer or Laptop, I stored all my important things in my laptop. There is nothing like full proof application or system to get back our phone after losing it.
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