When I started my business several years back, I made a common amateur mistake of giving out my cellphone number to clients. Slowly but surely this made my life miserable as they would call me at all hours, day or night. As my business grew, I naturally had some disputes with certain clients, and because they had my number, it reached a point where I no longer answered my phone for those clients OR for any numbers I didn't recognize.
Sometimes I miss important calls because of this, but my theory is that if someone needs to reach me they would have the common decency of leaving a message so that I know who they are. Changing my number is not an option, as I have had it for almost 12 years, and hundreds of friends, relatives and companies have my number.
I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on the matter.