Business hours for your phone: how a second number separates work from life

If you run a business from your phone, you know the feeling of a number lighting up at dinner and not knowing whether to answer. The caller may be a customer with a genuine question or a supplier who could have emailed. Either way you are back at work. Do Not Disturb silences everyone, including your family. The real fix is structural: work calls should arrive on a different line, and that line should have hours.

What business hours on a number do

In Second Phone, each number has its own voicemail setting with a schedule. Switch on voicemail, then turn on each day you want to take calls and set a time range for it. Inside those hours, calls ring as normal. Outside them, and on days you leave switched off, callers hear your greeting and leave a message. You are not silencing your phone; the work line is simply closed.

Because the schedule belongs to the number, your personal number is unaffected. Your partner can still call at 11 pm; your customers hear "we are open from nine".

Setting it up in five minutes

1. On your Profile, tap the work number and switch on Voicemail.
2. Turn on Monday to Friday (or whatever your week is) and tap each day's time range to set it.
3. Type your greeting in the voicemail message box: who you are, your hours, when you will call back. Save it.
4. Tap Update Business Hours.

That is the whole set-up; the step-by-step version with screenshots is in Set up voicemail and business hours.

Small habits that make it work

Check voicemail at a set time. Voicemails are listed under Recents with the caller and duration, and a notification tells you when one arrives. Deal with them in a batch at the start of the day rather than as they come in.

Use the number switcher deliberately. At the top of Keypad, Messages and Recents you pick the number you are working with. Switch to the work line when you sit down to work, and back to your personal number when you stop; the tabs show only that number's conversations and calls.

Let notifications do the sorting. Notifications name the number a call or message arrived on, so you can decide at a glance whether something is work.

Use forwarding for real absences. Business hours handle evenings. For a week off, forward the work line to a colleague, or leave voicemail on with a greeting that says when you are back.

Why this beats a second phone

A second handset can be switched off, but then nobody hears a greeting, and you have to remember to switch it on again on Monday. Business hours on a second number do both jobs automatically, every day, and they travel with you on the one phone you carry.

Frequently asked questions

Can I have different hours on different days?

Yes. Each day has its own switch and time range, so a half day on Friday and no calls at the weekend is a normal set-up.

What do callers hear outside my hours?

Your voicemail greeting, which you type in the number's settings, followed by the option to leave a message. The message appears under Recents → Voicemail and you get a notification.

Does this affect my personal number?

No. Business hours are a setting on one number. Your other numbers, including your personal mobile, ring whenever they are called.