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No Apple watch month – April

I decided to give up on the Apple Watch for a month at the start of the month, and today is the last day, and I wanted to reflect on what I learned and write them down for my future self.


TL.DR➖ I definitely do miss my apple watch, but not enough that I plan to keep buying the subsequent versions as and when it launches.


I’ve worn it so long on my wrist I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it on me. I bought the Apple Watch first-gen and ever since had one on my person, so roughly close to 6 years. It’d be such a long time that I could use a break for a few days, that is when I realised, instead of few days, let me make it a month and understand what I enjoyed and what I didn’t about going Watch free for a month.

The first few days were a little odd, and I missed the Watch a bit more than I had expected; I didn’t expect that I relied on the apple watch so much for so many things daily. I used it to keep tabs on my time, especially when I was in the kitchen trying to cook or juggling time-sensitive tasks due to work timings. So having a timepiece on myself was very useful, so even if I don’t need an apple watch, I definitely need a Watch on me to stay on top of time. The mornings are always the rush, but once I am off my work, the lack of knowing time is kinda liberating. So I’ve mixed feelings here, but given how much of life revolves around work and punctuality is essential, I will need a Watch for myself.


Not trying to stand up every hour to complete the stand goal was a relief. While the stand goals are reasonable from a healthy perspective, it is more interruption than anything. I would instead prioritise the activity goal than just the stand goal. I pride myself on completing all the 3 goals/rings that I have set for myself. So it’s really going to be hard for me not to achieve this when I get to wear the Watch again tomorrow. I think my compulsiveness to meet would win with this battle of giving up on apple rings even if I feel interrupted during focused work. I may even disable the goals, but I doubt I will stick to them.


Notifications are the Boon and the Bane of all the smart devices, and Apple Watch is no different. I definitely missed them during my drives in the car. A quick glance on the Watch is always better than pulling the phone out, especially when your hands are right there on the steering wheel. I definitely like that not having them during work helped me stay focused on my work with lesser distractions. While I definitely feel there wasn’t a lot of context switching during the work hours without the Watch on me, I definitely did get some anxiety on some notifications, i.e. food delivery notifications which I didn’t want to miss during work hours. There was some random checking of the phone to check if I missed any of them on some days. So what I want to do here when I get back to the Watch is to review the notifications and tune them just enough to reduce the anxiety while maximising distraction-free time, especially during work hours.


I didn’t do any run workouts this entire month, nor were there any plans for running or tracking workouts, so I didn’t miss any apps in any fashion. Had I been running, this no watch month would have been impossible, to begin with.


If you know me, you know I try to track everything. Sleep is one among those that I track, and not having the apple watch was kind of a let down in this space. I used to track sleep on my Watch even before Apple released its own version of sleep tracking. I liked that my morning alarms were just a wrist buzz. Even though I have a pleasant tone to wake up to, I find it jarring to wake up to an alarm and tapping the wrist to disable the vibrations on the Watch was a lot easier. I really look forward to waking up to the tapping of the Watch starting tomorrow.


In all, it was a fun experiment to learn a few things about my likes and dislikes with the Watch. 30-day hiatus helped me understand what I used my Watch for and what could be improved for the years to come. Trying these 30-day experiments is also fun, and I would like to try some more such experiments. If you tried something similar and enjoyed it or hated it, please let me know in the comments. If you have any ideas for such experiments, do share them with me.

credits: Photo by Brandon Romanchuk on Unsplash

On Writing

It came up recently in a conversation that I don’t write well naturally. Yes, that is something I have to agree to without any doubts. I wish I could say I had a natural talent for it, especially in English. I am afraid I am not. English is not my mother tongue.
I want to say I am more of a person who does a brain dump first and chisels away at it until I find my perfection. I haven’t been on top of my game at reviewing myself better lately, and it reflects in my outputs at work. I am very grateful I have another set of eyes reviewing my work before it gets filed for records forever. While this pair second pair of eyes seems a blessing, I may have been lazily cheating and used it as the only pair of eyes reviewing the document 😔 .
This conversation dawned upon me as a wake-up call. It reminded me of my school days. My teachers asked me to use a fountain pen to write. It forced me to slow down with my writing; it made me thoughtful at what I wrote, my handwriting became better. I think it’s time for me to get down to the basics and work my way through to be better.

As they say, rewriting is the essence of writing. I am going to get back to reviewing my work thoroughly, every time. The new year season is on, 🤷🏽‍♂️ but let’s call it a coincidence and not a resolution. Here is to slowing down, writing more and writing better; come this new year. New year wishes!

Welcome 2018!

It has been a good couple of years for me. I am extremely thankful and happy for what I have and how far I have come. Sadly the blog hasn’t seen much during this time and hopefully I will work on it better this year. I don’t have a new year resolution to post X number of posts or any such thing. But I do have a framework of what I want to do this year. My one keyword for this year is going to be HABITS. I plan to work on creating a quite a few good habits or get rid of a few bad ones over the entirety of this year. The idea is to focus on one habit every month and stay disciplined to create that habit at the end of the month. Most of these are going to be about small minor wins to be had on a daily basis.
This month I am going to try to Read at least a page of book first thing in the morning, every day of January.

Photo credits teestassi.