How to Use Your Old iPhone to Set Better Work Boundaries
A new Apple ID could be your key to Zen
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I scooped up the iPhone 12 Mini — my first upgrade in more than four years — mainly because it was time for an intervention. Working for yourself certainly has its perks, but quarantine has only accelerated my bad habits: checking work apps while sitting on the couch, peeking at metrics between social media scrolls, and pulling up marketing reports out of sheer boredom. Sometimes a needle has moved, and in my app-checking compulsion, I’ve dug myself into my own special variable rewards hole. Upgrading presented a good opportunity for a hard reset.
I didn’t know if my solution was the most optimal solution. What I did know was that I wanted a visceral change, one that I could literally feel in the palm of my hand and then put away in a drawer when it was time to call it a day. So, rather than writing the definitive, be-all-end-all tutorial on work-life separation, allow me to present how I reorganized my personal tech setup and what steps to take so you can do the same.
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What to consider before making your decision
My freelancing business involves a lot of content creation, and I regularly capture screenshots or complete tasks from my smartphone. I also like getting away from my desk sometimes; if editing articles from my phone while sitting in the backyard with an IPA is wrong, I don’t want to be right. That being said, the device designed to bring me pleasure had become a ticking time bomb of work updates. Having a smartphone as a work tool felt like a necessity, so converting my old iPhone 7 Plus into a work-only device seemed like the right solution.
Working for yourself certainly has its perks, but quarantine has only accelerated my bad habits.
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