Experiment Log – 007 | Reduce Smartphone Usage with an Apple Watch
This experiment is all about trying to reduce my smartphone usage at home with the use of an Apple Watch. Yes, I know it sounds ironic — trying to reduce usage of one gadget, with the use of another gadget. But let me try to explain where I'm coming from.
One of the best things about working from home, is being able to eat with my kids at the dinner table. When I'm working from home though, I'm always worried about time that I spend away from my desk. What if my boss wants me to join a call? What if I was supposed to join a meeting? This is why I've resorted to carrying my phone around whenever I'm eating with my kids, or helping Coney out with Baby Caleb.
Carrying my phone around the house has renewed my itch to use it. Like when I'm at the dinner table, or by the bathroom door while potty training Davin, or when I'm carrying Baby Caleb around to give Coney a breather. It's all too easy to just pull it out and fire up the Feedly, Micro.blog or DuckDuckGo app. As you can see, it is not ideal to have my phone with me around the house. Also, how I am supposed to tell Davin to not bring his iPad to the dinner table, when I'm always bringing my phone around for lunch?
Prior to this experiment, I've been using an old Fitbit Charge 2. Unfortunately, it is very unreliable as far as call and text notifications goes. I'll probably get notified 1 out of 5 text messages. Phone calls? Sometimes it notifies me, sometimes it doesn't. The only notification it delivers reliably, are calendar alerts. In other words, I can't trust it to deliver notifications. Which is why I've started looking into Apple Watches. Coney has one and I'm borrowing it for this experiment. The idea is to leave my phone at my desk all day and rely on the Apple Watch to deliver notifications. This should stop me from having to carry my phone around the house.
Timeline
I'll let this experiment run for at least a month. I'll check back in next month.
This post is Day 52 of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Visit https://100daystooffload.com to get more info, or to get involved.
Tags: #ExperimentLog #DigitalMinimalism #SmartphoneAddiction #100DaysToOffload