Day one - The Nokia, the Gym and the Open Fridge

Francisco Tárrega was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist. You may never have heard of him, but if you owned a cell phone in the early 2000s, you've probably heard a snippet of his work Gran Vals, from 1902 - the four bars used in the Nokia ringtone.

Tananan tananan tananan tan tan - I bet you can hear it in your head right now.

Francisco's work will accompany me going forward on my "new" Nokia, just like it did when I was 15. But I confess I struggled to set up what now seems to me like a piece of medieval technology. Used to passwords and face recognition, I must admit that I had to search online (on my laptop), how to unlock the screen. Hitting the central button and then the left upper button didn't seem to me as obvious as it did 20 years ago. Once the screen was unlocked, I was finally set up to start my experiment.

It's a strange feeling not having your phone in your pocket. It feels like something is missing. I'd reach for my phone whenever boredom started to hit me. I've being doing it for years. Today, while waiting for the elevator, I couldn't tolerate even ten seconds of boredom. I reached into my pocket and found nothing. That's when I realised how dependent I'd become on my phone.

But I was also beginning to realise that my phone wasn't just helping me avoid boredom. It was also helping me avoid being unproductive. I always listen to a podcast while walking my dog. This way I feel that time is not "wasted", as I get to learn something while my dog takes a pee. Today, it was a challenge to complete my two 20-minutes walks with him listening only to my thoughts, the birds and the cars.

I also spent the whole morning doing household chores, party because I didn't know how to keep my mind busy and away from the fact that I didn't have my phone at hand. And after lunch, when I decided to go to the gym, I realised that completely letting go of my phone wouldn't be as easy as I initially thought.

If you've filled a form recently, you've probably had to enter your email and phone number as required fields, almost as essential as your ID. Society now assumes that everyone is online and carrying a phone. My gym was no different.

Accessing my gym requires a QR code available only through their app. I though of taking a screenshot, printing it and taking it physically with me. However, to prevent fraud, screenshotting the QR code is not possible, so I took my smartphone with me as a backup in case there was nobody at reception when I got there, which was not the case.

I talked to the guy behind the counter and told him some nonsense about having a bad connection with my mobile provider. He suggested that I connect to the gym's Wi-Fi. I said my phone wasn't working well, and asked if he could give me a card to access the gym. Which he did, reluctantly.

It was a strange interaction. I felt bad about telling that nonsense story, and the guy was looking at me as if I were crazy. I need to figure out how I'm going to handle situations like this in the future. I don't want to lie every time I need to explain why I don't have a smartphone. But that's a problem for another day.

Back from the gym, I spent the afternoon playing with my kids, and that was the highlight of the day. Being a parent is challenging. I feel like I've lost a bit of my own identity as my days consist of working and taking care of the kids. On many days, I just want to be alone for a while, and usually that means doomscrolling. It's sad, but it's true. Sometimes I'm playing with them, but thinking about an email from work that could have arrived or a message that might have arrived from a friend. In other words, I'm there but I'm not there.

Today it was different. We were all present enjoying our time together, and they were asking me questions about very random stuff ("Daddy, do volcanos actually exist?"). I spent several minutes using an apple as a model of the earth, explaining that the earth has a small skin like the apple, and within it's filled with lava. Once the lava find's a small hole in the earth's skin, it's goes out in the form of a volcano. "Like a worm leaving the apple daddy"? Exactly!

But the moment that made me realise I might actually be onto something came later, when I opened the fridge to think.

I stood there looking into my open fridge without actually knowing why. And that's when it hit me. I couldn't remember the last time I opened my fridge just to think. That's not needed when you have the world at your fingertips.

Maybe this experiment isn't really about giving up my phone. Maybe it's about learning to be comfortable with boredom, silence and unproductive moments—and being more present with the people I love.

It's Sunday. Now comes the real test. I'll work for the next two days, and then I'm going on holiday for two weeks. I deliberately chose this day to start because I want to experience my holiday without a smartphone—to actually be there for it.

I don't want to hear anything from Francisco Tárrega for the next two weeks.