I held out for years on getting a smartwatch. I already feel too connected to devices and thought that the watch would make it worse. But I bit the bullet because I wanted to track my exercise and steps and have found that the complete opposite is true because it helps me be on my phone less. I’m officially a convert. Let me explain…

It helps me be on my devices less: 

• When I get a text, I can see a preview on the watch and if it’s important I’ll pick up my phone and text back. If not, I can leave it and text back later. Before the watch, I’d open my phone to check the text and end up doing a million other things.
• When I go to check the time, I just look at the watch instead of my phone. When I’d check the time on my phone, I would find myself opening it up and scrolling.
• Because I get alerts on the watch, I find myself not picking up my phone and bringing it from room to room. I have to keep my phone on and near me at all times in case I get a call from daycare, so I was kind of obsessive about this before. Now I know the call will pop up on my watch so I don’t feel tethered to the phone.

It helps me find my phone: I lose my phone approximately 87x/day and to be able to just tap a button to find it has probably saved me hours of searching time at home and frantically digging through my purse to make sure I have it in the car.

It tracks my fitness: I love the Activity app to track how much I stand, walk, and exercise each day. This feature makes me think about walking more, standing more, and motivates me to move my body every day. It’s such a silly thing but I now understand everyone’s obsession with closing their rings!

Beyond texting, activity tracker, the timer, and an occasional phone call, I don’t use it for anything and I have all other notifications turned off so it won’t turn into something that I am constantly checking.

My Apple Watch: I have a 40mm Apple Watch SE in rose gold with a solo loop in Starlight. I like the solo loop because you don’t have to latch it closed, it just slips right on your wrist. But is the Hermès double wrap band on my Christmas list? Yes, yes it is. But more realistically, a lot of people have recommended the MACHETE watch band.