A smartphone is a great tool.
To be precise, it’s a great servant but a terrible master.
While you can train and tame a smartphone, you can’t always do that with a mobile number.
I haven’t used a phone number since 2 years now.
I always keep my phone on flight mode + wifi to work with all app notifications off.
This ensures I can engage in shallow work like responding to messages and emails WHEN I WANT. And I usually do this in my scheduled shallow work sessions which are spread a few times in the day so nothing is missed more than a few hours.
However, the problems with a mobile number are:
- People expect you will be available on call
- Anyone can call you at any time (how does that make any sense for productivity!)
- People can text you (Most of which are spam)
- When people know you don’t use a number, they will most likely send you a message on a chat app which you can reply to at your convenience.