A recent trip forced me into a week of near-total disconnection - my phone stayed in the backpack most of the time, and it turned out I missed absolutely nothing. That got me thinking.
I've been experimenting with reducing my smartphone reliance, but I want to be clear about what this is and isn't. It's not a rejection of technology. I'm not going to buy a dumbphone and write hand-written letters. What I'm after is "different-tech" rather than low-tech: small detours from the default path that give me back some autonomy over my time, mood, focus, and media consumption without giving up the parts of modern life that actually work well.
So I started by asking myself which functions really need to be with me at all times, which can be reimagined, and which I can just drop. Turns out the list of "must be immediately accessible" things is shorter than my smartphone would have me believe.
The setup I've landed on has two parts.
The first is my smartwatch, which I'd been massively underusing as a glorified step counter and reminder buzzer. Now it does mobile payments, it has LTE so my family can actually reach me, it handles my appointment reminders, and it plays podcasts on my commute. That covers pretty much every genuine on-the-go need I have.
The second piece lives in my backpack: a Boox Palma, which is basically a smartphone-sized e-ink device. This one targets a very specific bad habit - reaching for the phone whenever I'm bored. The Palma is great for reading, taking notes, and light Wi-Fi browsing, and it is intentionally terrible at video and social media, which is exactly the point. Battery lasts about five days, and it even has a basic camera for the moments I want one.
The early result: it feels genuinely liberating to leave the smartphone at home.
There's a nice bonus coming up too. I have a US trip on the horizon, and my personal phone is staying behind. Only a business phone travels with me, which neatly removes any worry about handing over my personal data at immigration.
I'll keep writing about how this goes as the experiment continues.