A horrible thing happened to me. If you love your smartphone (don't we all?), this post may be too scary to read. It's about all the yucky reality of losing access to your smartphone when it is an important part of your life and business.
It started like this...
Last month, I was casually sitting at my desk. My LG-G4 was resting nearby, dozing. Or whatever phones are doing when they aren't being helpful.
The screen flickered on, as if I had gotten a text or notification. When I picked the phone up to check, the screen blacked out.
Little did I know that was the Black Screen of Death. Little did I know that my life, my income, and my faith in my phone company were all about to get upended.
Here is what I learned after living nearly a month without my own phone...
1. Life Without a Phone Doesn't Suddenly Become Magical
Know all those people who are always nagging about "youngsters" and their phones? They make it sound like if we go "unplugged for a couple of days we will turn into some sort of superpeople.
Yep. If it weren't for those nasty phones we would all be baking cookies all day in sparkling homes with full bank accounts and no worries.
I would love to say it made me more productive, more cheerful, more pretty, more healthy, and more cookie-bakey...more Little House on the Prairie, for goodness sake...
But it didn't. It just threw us into total chaos, and I felt like exactly what I was. An isolated mom who was losing money and forgetting to take down the garbage can like clockwork.
Yep. If it weren't for those nasty phones we would all be baking cookies all day in sparkling homes with full bank accounts and no worries.
I would love to say it made me more productive, more cheerful, more pretty, more healthy, and more cookie-bakey...more Little House on the Prairie, for goodness sake...
But it didn't. It just threw us into total chaos, and I felt like exactly what I was. An isolated mom who was losing money and forgetting to take down the garbage can like clockwork.
2. My Husband Needs a Better Phone
I have a cool phone because I'm the one who needs a mobile office/central hub.
My husband however...
He carries a basic Lumia that he picked up on a TMobile plan at Walmart. Because he doesn't want to learn how to use all those "fancy-schmancy buttons".
It works fine for him, because he is one of those weird people that actually likes to talk on the phone (and that is pretty much all he does with his phone except use the alarm clock.)
But my gosh. I used it whenever I needed to text my mom and it is a pain! I think any phone that doesn't come with a camera flash is a little uncivilized, you know?
And he does need a better camera, and maybe a phone that will at least run Twitter, because he does run a small business selling motorcycle parts.
So yeah. He definitely gets a fancier phone later on and I will spend the happily spend years reminding him how to attach a photo to a text.
3. No Phone Did Not Make Me More Productive
It seems pretty obvious. If you don't have a phone, then you can get tons of stuff done. Right? Um. Nope.
Even productivity advice for people who work online includes "don't look at your phone".
I got exactly less stuff done.
In fact, it made harder to get anything done because, like I said, my phone was a central hub. It was where we kept the grocery list, the to-do list, our chore apps, our banking apps, appointment calendars, etc.
And also where I did most of my social media management, art marketing, sales, emails, and affiliate work.
I have a cool phone because I'm the one who needs a mobile office/central hub.
My husband however...
He carries a basic Lumia that he picked up on a TMobile plan at Walmart. Because he doesn't want to learn how to use all those "fancy-schmancy buttons".
It works fine for him, because he is one of those weird people that actually likes to talk on the phone (and that is pretty much all he does with his phone except use the alarm clock.)
But my gosh. I used it whenever I needed to text my mom and it is a pain! I think any phone that doesn't come with a camera flash is a little uncivilized, you know?
And he does need a better camera, and maybe a phone that will at least run Twitter, because he does run a small business selling motorcycle parts.
So yeah. He definitely gets a fancier phone later on and I will spend the happily spend years reminding him how to attach a photo to a text.
3. No Phone Did Not Make Me More Productive
It seems pretty obvious. If you don't have a phone, then you can get tons of stuff done. Right? Um. Nope.
Even productivity advice for people who work online includes "don't look at your phone".
I got exactly less stuff done.
In fact, it made harder to get anything done because, like I said, my phone was a central hub. It was where we kept the grocery list, the to-do list, our chore apps, our banking apps, appointment calendars, etc.
And also where I did most of my social media management, art marketing, sales, emails, and affiliate work.
3. I Need to Invest in Some Clock Batteries
Since we both have phones, (usually), we've gotten out of the habit of putting batteries in our clocks. It seems silly to buy batteries (which are ridiculously expensive) for clocks we don't use, when we are watching our budget.
We have a digital clock on the stove, which pretty much serves as the house clock right now.
We have no fewer than 7 regular clocks in the main living area...and not a one of them had a battery. Oops.
4. We Need an Emergency Phone
There is that moment when you think to yourself:
"I don't need a phone. The pioneers didn't have phones. I will just rough it like my ancestors with wi/fi and my laptop."
Then one of your kids does something psycho crazy and lays on the floor screaming with a bruised, swelling arm.
I can't remember what the pioneers did in that situation. Either shot the wounded person or told them to quit being lazy and go whittle themselves a splint, I guess.
These days, there are agencies that frown on some old-fashioned parenting practices. So I had to use frozen peas and leave desperate messages all over my family's social pages, hoping someone would see them.
They didn't. But the good news is that it was the kind of injury that could be fixed by gnawing through a bag of frozen peas.
Still. We need something a little more modern as a back-up plan. Because...what if my phone broke and I didn't have any peas? You certainly can't trust those social algorithms to get your message across soon enough.
5. I Need a Better Alarm Clock
Yep. Back to clocks!
Waking up around here is not really a scheduled thing. With flexible work and lesson schedules we can be rather feral at times.
As much as I would like to roll out of bed scratching and yawning whenever like the rest of the crowd, I do at least try to be up in time to get some work done before the first feeding frenzy of the day.
That said, without an alarm clock, I had to depend on my back-up alarms:
- Having to Pee
- The Sound of Crashing and Hysterical Laughter/Screaming From the Twin's Room
- My Husband Asking Me "Where Is...? Have You Seen...?"
If I do set an alarm, any of those three things above will wake me about 7 minutes before the alarm sounds.
Every. Darn. Day.
This month? THIS MONTH? No help, not even when it was needed!
6. If You Don't Use It, You Lose It
Or rather, if you aren't able to keep up with your social media contacts, they chalk you up as dead, and wander off.
Oh, each of those "unfollows" stung. Even worse was the ugly line on all my stats counters showing the drop-off in visitors and earnings.
Needless to say, I had something like an anxiety attack every single night when I was finally able to log on and desperately try to fix the damage.
7. I Have a Calculator Dependency
What was the #1 most used app on my phone? The calculator.
In fact, it was responsible for all the data overages I've ever incurred. I use it for bills. For budgets. For just playing around with big numbers I wish I could see in my bank account.
Yeah. I could do all my random, pointless the math on paper.
Oh wait. I did.
Nerd fun.
(But not as fun as the darn calculator. And a terrible waste of paper.)
8. Sometimes Paper Is Better, Though
I'm all for saving time, saving the planet, and saving notes.
But...keeping track of period cycles with an app was pretty much a bad idea. Its not something I would normally say out loud, but I was tracking the information due to some health problems.
Several months of data is gone, and if I can't even remember which day is trashday...how on earth could I possible answer the questions a doctor asks about stuff that happened months ago?
Paper would have also been a better place for that epic to-do list, I guess. And maybe a paper calendar.
9. Maybe I Should Clean Out My OneDrive
I didn't realize that I had used my online storage limit, and a lot of my recent photos were lost.
Maybe its just me (it's probably one of those outdated things I'm still using after everyone else has evolved) but I hate cleaning up OneDrive. It is so sloooow. Then I kinda get busy looking at all the photos and forget to delete any.
Note to self: (on paper) organize photos sometime this decade.
I'm 85% Digital
I'm probably supposed to say, here at the end, something like how glad I am that my phone died looking back. How it made me a better person, how it allowed me to {insert emotionally charged phrase here}...
But that would be lying.
It didn't make me a better person. Just a poorer, crabbier, exhausted mom from working too long at night to make up for what I couldn't do during the day.
I can also say that I stressed about the cost of replacing the phone, which didn't seem fair at all since it wasn't my fault that an update killed it.
I won't go as far as to say that I am 100% digital. I still use paper and pen everyday. I write letters. I organize with binders. I don't need a recipe from the internet to cook a meal.
If my online friends unfollow me after a week of not hearing from me, then I shrug. Its a big world. I'll make new friends!
But I am glad to have my phone back. I missed my calculator. My alarm clock. My Walmart Savings Catcher App! I really missed being able to send my husband an "I love you" at random times during the day, and check in on my family.
And I totally missed my camera, because I needed photos for my business!
I'm glad to be a part of cellular civilization again!
How connected to your phone are you? If it broke, would you be in trouble, or just inconvenienced?
I'm probably supposed to say, here at the end, something like how glad I am that my phone died looking back. How it made me a better person, how it allowed me to {insert emotionally charged phrase here}...
But that would be lying.
It didn't make me a better person. Just a poorer, crabbier, exhausted mom from working too long at night to make up for what I couldn't do during the day.
I can also say that I stressed about the cost of replacing the phone, which didn't seem fair at all since it wasn't my fault that an update killed it.
I won't go as far as to say that I am 100% digital. I still use paper and pen everyday. I write letters. I organize with binders. I don't need a recipe from the internet to cook a meal.
If my online friends unfollow me after a week of not hearing from me, then I shrug. Its a big world. I'll make new friends!
But I am glad to have my phone back. I missed my calculator. My alarm clock. My Walmart Savings Catcher App! I really missed being able to send my husband an "I love you" at random times during the day, and check in on my family.
And I totally missed my camera, because I needed photos for my business!
I'm glad to be a part of cellular civilization again!
How connected to your phone are you? If it broke, would you be in trouble, or just inconvenienced?
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