If you somehow managed to not to stumble across it quite yet, GrandCentral is a wonderful tool enabling a single point-of-contact telephone number for your contacts.  I found it via the Four-Hour Workweek and have not looked back!

After you sign up (invite only or by putting yourself on their wait list), you are prompted to pick a number from numerous different area codes.  After  picking the “perfect number,” you enter in various telephone numbers for yourself — cell, home, work, skype/gizmo, etc.

From there, anyone who calls your GrandCentral number will be ring all-to-none of your phones, depending on your preferences and contact lists.  For example, you want your best friend to ring all your numbers, but unknown callers to only ring home (or go straight to voicemail!).  You answer on whichever phone you wish, 100% oblivious to your caller.

When you receive a call, a delightful voice informs you who is calling (if they’re in your contacts it will say it automatically, otherwise it will prompt your caller for a name), and gives you other options than just answer the call, such as sending straight to voice mail (and screening it like a traditional answering machine) and recording your conversation.  All voicemails (and recordings) are stored online, and you’re able to check via a traditional dial-in/pin as well.

Other little features include the ability to switch phones on the fly (press pound during the call, pick up another phone, voilà), and a recent integration with a Skype-like service, Gizmo.  Normally, you have to pay for inbound calls, but it is free with the GC/Gizmo combo.

Downsides discovered so far:  No text message forwarding, so intimate contacts will still need your cell number.  May cost something at some point (did I forget to mention it was free?).  Recently purchased by Google (”Don’t be evil,” right?). The “Sup man? Oh, dammit. *presses 1* Sup man?” cycle gets a little tedious.

Still, the benefits should be fairly obvious.  Between having an area code in LA or NY, to screening calls, and even the more basic feature of never having to update your friends if you change numbers (or route your calls to a friends number if you lost your phone in a drunken stupor), a GrandCentral account seems like a no-brainer.  Good luck getting one!

Visit GrandCentral to sign up.

This post was written by long time reader Jess Rutherford.  If you liked this post make sure to leave him a comment.  If you’re interested in writing a guest post, email us at tips@urbanmonarch.com.