Wednesday, October 18, 2006

A way to reduce stress

Assumptions:
1. You carry a mobile phone in your pocket.
2. You spend too much time checking your watch to see if you have to be at your next appointment, and this causes anxiety.

Method:
1. Do not wear a watch.
2. Set alarms on your mobile phone to warn you of appointments.

Justification:
1. As reaching into your pocket to check the time on your phone is highly inconvenient, you will check the time less often, compared to wearing a watch.
2. You no longer poll for appointments - your mobile phone alarm generates interrupts instead. This is far more efficient and no polling (i.e. no checking of the time) reduces stress.

Auxiliary Benefits:
* You do not have to buy a watch!

Notes:
If there is something else in the room that displays the current time (e.g. wall clock or computer's taskbar applet), the effectiveness of this method is reduced. However, you still get the benefit of being more relaxed as you have the knowledge that the phone alarm will always warn you about your next appointment, in time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you use Google's calendar, you can have it remind you of appointments with a SMS message to your cell phone.

Anonymous said...

I use the fuzzy clock on my computer to display time. Has similar effects :)

ps. I have not owned a watch for 10 years.
Thomas

Anonymous said...

I find wrist watches uncomfortable, so I no longer own one.

I just wish there was an easy way to add appointments. I've added a few, but the user interface is bad. In the end the phone is great for calls and reminders, but practically useless for entering anything other than phone #'s and SMS. (someone spent a lot of time making t9 text input work - too bad that didn't work on the rest of the interface)

I can buy a serial cable that fits the phone. For more than the phone itself costs without a contract! (Okay, it is a cheap phone, but still the price is outragious) I considered it, but they state flat out that it only works with Microsoft outlook on Windows. In short worthless.

I had a pocket watch that I loved for a while, (an illegal counterfit from somewhere in Asia recived as a gift) but I never replaced the battery. Same benifit as the phone in my pocket, but easier to dig out out than the phone because the watch was on a case on my belt (which I solely so I could keep the watch on it), not mixed with my keys.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your advices! There are some other ways to a stress free life. Maybe you will find them useful for you.