Hand-Held Issues

Starting off on my first day of fully committing to this journey, I felt lackluster. Not that my excitement from yesterday had disappeared, but still being at my parents’ house for the holidays left me confused as to where I could really begin. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of someday again. Still, how do you minimalize your life when you’re not even surrounded by your own things?

I decided the best place would be to start with the things I carry all the time: my phone, my Apple watch, my Oura ring, and my purse.

My Oura ring was easy, I knew that I wasn’t going to get rid of it. There’s too much value in knowing how well I’m sleeping and how my body is reacting to the stress around me. I won’t get anything from it, but if you’re interested I definitely recommend you look into it (here) as an alternative to all of the fitness trackers that ping and distract you. The Oura looks like just a typical ring and it doesn’t take anything from the quality of my life or distract me from the moments I try to have with my family, friends, and dogs.

Next was my watch, and as I went through a mental exercise of cataloging its pros and cons, I realized that I kind of hated it. Nothing against Apple, honestly, since almost all of my electronics are from the tech giant. Rather, I started to notice how often I was getting distracted by the device. All of my text messages, calls, emails, work notifications, and a million other little vibrations were going off throughout the day. It was forcing me to look at my wrist in the middle of practically everything I was trying to do. So, I took it off and told myself that I would try that for a few hours and see how it went. It was remarkable. The difference blew me away. Granted, I was still looking down at my wrist and I hated having to go to my phone or computer for the time (since there’s a decided lack of clocks in my parents’ house). But, I realized that I didn’t need all of the technology and connection that the Apple watch was giving me - I just needed a regular, analog watch that could tell me the time.

The other thing I realized as I worked through this challenge was my frustration with the Apple ring system. Yes, having little notifications pop up to remind you that you’re human and need to move around was occasionally helpful. What isn’t helpful is having this judgmental little device on your body telling you that you aren’t good enough and that you should do better at all hours of the day. Now, I’m not the healthiest person in the world, and I certainly haven’t given myself very good habits in that department. So, on my first day, when slowly walking my dogs for a few miles was all I could get myself into around all my work meetings and this process, it was defeating to have my Apple watch tell me that I hadn’t worked out hard enough to close my green exercise ring. Beyond all the distractions, that felt like the final straw. I took the watch off, took a picture of it, put it on Facebook Marketplace, and will not put it back on again.

Honestly, removing that one, seemingly very small item, from my life has already felt like a huge game-changer. At night I wasn’t constantly checking my watch or getting notifications that I should stand and walk around in the middle of trying to fall asleep. Now, I just need a regular watch - so if you have any recommendations for women’s analog watches that you love, please share!

I was avoiding my phone, so I decided to work through my purse next, which included my wallet. The purse itself didn’t have much inside, so I kept everything besides some spare change and receipts that I definitely should have thrown out a long time ago. The wallet is a totally different animal since I have cards for practically everything. As of right now, I haven’t been able to get rid of anything, but this process forced me to list out what expenses are tied to each account so that I can slowly close those out and get rid of the physical cards. Ideally, my wallet would have only the following: my license, my insurance, one debit card, one credit card.

For now, I’m a far cry off from that ideal with three debit cards, half a dozen credit cards, ten rewards or store cards, and three library cards (I absolutely adore books, but we’ll get into that once I start having to tackle that section of my life).

Then, with nothing else on my list, I grudgingly turned to my phone. My iPhone is only about six months old, and while I wouldn’t say that I love it, I do have an intense attachment to it. Where I struggle the most has always been in the gaming and shopping areas. I knew I didn’t want to get rid of the social media apps (since I need those for my day job) or the account monitoring apps since those give me notifications for balance alerts. On the other hand, the mindless games and the online shopping were taking away from my quality of life.

A short aside to help illustrate my point: just before Christmas, when I first got to my parents’ house, I was addicted to playing a merging game on my phone. It had something to do with fairies and was adding absolutely nothing to my life, but I was hooked. I had spent a ridiculous (and embarrassing) amount of money on their popup deals and specials and was convinced that I needed to be constantly checking on my little universe. That night I first arrived, my dogs were busy playing with their aunt (my parents’ yellow lab) and I was curled up on a chair in the living room with my phone. Now, my little one is only just six months old, so he still occasionally has accidents. But, not like this. Sitting in my chair, I wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to him. I didn’t notice that he came over to sit next to me and had his head on the arm of the chair, which is how my boys ask to go outside. Because I was so wrapped up in this game, I couldn’t give my own dog the time of day and he was not having it. So, in classic puppy fashion, he wandered around for a minute and then squatted right in front of the chair and peed. I’m not talking a little tinkle. No. He emptied the tank right there on my mother’s carpet. And in that moment, I realized this game, this thing that I had been numbing myself with, was actually taking away one of the most important things in my life - quality time with my two boys.

Getting back to purging my phone on day one, I went through each folder and app on my home screen and deleted everything that had to do with shopping, gaming, or general distractions. My delete list included all the games I had become addicted to (including the offending merge one from above), about half a dozen shopping sites, all of my food delivery and convenience apps, as well as some random ones I hadn’t used in over a month. There are still quite a few things left on there, including a ton of social media, account apps, some language learning, and random things like news and weather. Once I get a better handle on my journey I think I’ll try to revisit my phone again and see what I genuinely need on there, but for now, it feels so much better.

Of course, I did not use the word addiction lightly, so I have been struggling with some withdrawal symptoms since the purge. I found myself looking at my phone constantly, pulling it out whenever I felt a hint of boredom, and struggling quite a lot to keep myself out of the app store and away from downloading new games. I’ve heard it gets a lot easier as you work through it, so here’s hoping!