• WHAT: A fast way to find names in your phone's address book
• WHY: If you've got a lot of entries it can take a LONG time to scroll through them
• COST: Totally free

If you're anything like me you've got a whole lot of entries in your cell phone's address book.  I'll be talking about a lot of them throughout this blog because many of them are for specific information access, not just for making phone calls.  That said, you probably know how much of a nuisance it can be to get to "Robert" or "Sam" or "Lois" if you've got a lot of these entries.  What you may not know is that there's a super-fast, totally free, easy-to-use way to jump right to those names (or at least darn close) without wasting any time. 

It couldn't be any more simple... when you access your address book on the phone instead of scrolling simply press the key that matches the letter of the first name of the individual you're looking for.  If you're looking for "Lee", press the "5" key three times.  If you're looking for "Debra" press the "3" key just once.  It's fast, efficient and easy to remember.  

EXTRA HINT: I also set up my speed dial to correspond with people's first names.  Virtually every phone on the market allows you to sign nine different address book entries to a speed dial number.  Lots of phones block out the "1" and "9" key because they're hard-coded for voicemail and 911, respectively.  But you can assign the "3" key (D, E, F) to "Debra" and the "7" key (P, Q, R, S) to "Paul."  When you want to call Paul just press and hold the key with his initial on it (the "7" key) and it'll ring him right up.