I Forgot My Phone and It Was Wonderful
The main reason I got my phone is the same reason that resulted in me forgetting it one Sunday morning and having to go through a day in 2024 as if it were 2004: Battery. When I looked for a new phone, I wanted one that could power through multiple days and arrived at the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I make use of the 80% limit charging feature to protect the battery life, and each day I only use 20-25% of my battery. Since I recharge once it hits 40%, this means I only charge my battery once every two days, or on the days the 80% limit wants to push my battery to 100% for calibration reasons, three days. Because of this, charging my phone is no longer something I do every night and instead charging is a strange activity.
Sunday morning my phone battery was at 35% so I opted to plug it into my solar battery to charge up while I took a shower. The solar battery is located near a window so I can run a cable from it out to a panel to get sunlight, which means my phone was in an odd place in the house. My family was tasked with bringing donuts to church. In the rush of getting those loaded in the car and making sure my daughter was ready to go, when everything was ready I got in the car and drove off, inadvertently leaving my phone at home.
I made it all the way to church before realizing I had forgotten it and let my wife know I didn't have my phone on me. Initially there was some panic, particularly as the kids area has you sign in with a phone number so in the event that your child has an issue they can text you and let you know during service. Also, my wife was volunteering after church so without my phone we couldn't send messages to each other alerting to when we were done.
Strangely enough, after this initial anxiety then came a relaxing helplessness from the realization simply if things happen, I can't know about them unless someone actually talks to me. I say helplessness because it wasn't something that could be addressed without me getting my phone and really did feel like the only option was to give up and accept. There was nothing to do to solve that problem in the meantime, and somehow that was liberating.
Without the phone there was no impulse to randomly check and see what was going on. There was no potential to be interrupted. For the first time in many years, I was forced to fully be present. And not just present at the level of choosing to not look at my phone, but it was my only option to be present. There's an interesting difference between the two. I think with the phone in your pocket, even if you aren't on it, it has a presence. It's available and the potential for it to overtake your event exists. None of that was true that Sunday morning. I was free of a technological chain, which I know can help in an emergency, but how often is your attention immediately required? Particularly if you are going to a place you are familiar with and are going through a normal routine, if someone really really had to reach me there would be places to check. Would it be harder than with a quick text? Yes. In that scenario though, would it likely matter? No.
Now I'm not saying don't take a phone with you because emergencies are rare and won't happen. I understand you would want a phone just in case, however this accidental experiment showed me maybe the phone doesn't need to be with you all of the time, and there's a big mental difference in the phone being in your pocket with you ignoring it, versus the phone being inaccessible to you while you are doing something.
I could see purposefully leaving it behind either in another room or in the car when I go do something in the future as it resulted in a lovely mixture of forcing me to be in the moment while also reducing anxiety since without that ability to get immediate information everything I had to do while I was out I had to accept I'm just here doing my tasks, then when I get home I can see if anything came up.
Funny enough, there actually was an important message waiting for me when I got home, however as with 99.99999% of my messages, it was not urgent. It was also sent to my wife, and it happened to do nothing but raise our anxiety even though there was nothing to be done. I think given the access to people these days, there's expectations about when messages should be answered and how fast that somehow trump whatever is going on in real life. That's not how it needs to be. You can take a break, you do not need to be on 100% of the time, the world survived plenty well without constant notifications up until the last decade, and delaying a message by an hour or two is fine.
Now I know some will say, "what if someone needs me" or "what if there is an emergency?" and to that I would respond if you are not physically with someone, and they are texting you alerting you to some emergency, it's unlikely that you would be able to impact that emergency. If someone is sick or injured, but are able to text you then they also can dial 911. Most "emergencies" delivered over text are alerts to something that has already happened. Your knowledge of it now compared to in one hour will not change that, and will only increase anxiety and stress.
I challenge you this week to leave the phone at home or in the car while you go take just an hour or two to do something completely uninterrupted. Don't worry, the world will be waiting for you when you get back, and you'll be better off in it for having taken a true break.