Life without a Phone; Just a Smartwatch

'What happens when the slab in your pocket disappears and the only screen you carry is a watch? Over the last months I experimented with leaving my phone at home and relying only on a Garmin fēnix and an Apple Watch Ultra. Here is what worked, what broke, and how it changed my attention.','Core loop: a glanceable device for capture and triage, nothing more. I set hard constraints—no social feeds, no web browsing, no inbox diving. The watch had three jobs: navigation, messages in emergencies, and health tracking.','Connectivity: LTE on the Apple Watch makes this viable. Calls and short iMessages work; dictation is solid outdoors, worse in wind. On Garmin, phone‑free still shines for sport but is limited for comms—perfect if you want fewer interruptions.','Maps and wayfinding: turn‑by‑turn on the wrist is underrated. Short trips feel lighter. I pre‑starred destinations on the phone at home; outside I only follow arrows. The constraint reduces dithering—no “which cafe?” rabbit holes.','Health and training: both watches excel. The fēnix wins on battery, durability, and data density; the Ultra wins on UX and app ecosystem. Sleep, HRV, and training load become the new “notifications” you actually want.','Friction points: 2FA prompts, QR codes, banking apps, and long forms. Photo capture is the biggest miss. I carried a tiny keychain camera twice; mostly I accepted fewer photos and more memories.','Social and focus: my average daily pickups dropped to near zero. Conversations are deeper, walks are longer, and boredom returned—in a good way. The watch enforces single‑tasking; there is no infinite scroll to hide inside.','System design: success depends on defaults. I removed all nonessential complications, muted all but VIP contacts, enabled focus schedules, and kept only these apps: Phone, Messages, Maps, Timer, Alarms, Workouts. Everything else lives on the Mac.','Who should try this: if you crave fewer inputs, manage a lot of outdoor movement, or already live inside a Mac, watch‑only is realistic 4–5 days a week. If your work requires frequent image capture or nontrivial typing, keep the phone nearby but off by default.','A practical kit: Apple Watch Ultra with LTE; one card on a minimalist wallet; AirPods; printed backup codes for 2FA; and a “call me” card for edge cases. On Garmin, pair with a simple feature phone if you need occasional calls.','The surprising outcome: I don’t miss the phone. I miss the camera. Attention, however, compounds when you stop renting it to timelines. A watch can be enough—if you let constraints do their work.'