Life Sans Wallet,ATM Card and Phone

Everything is an experiment for me.It wasn’t always like this though.

My experiences with different disciplines of human knowledge like Science,Engineering,Design and Business have given me one very important insight that all these fields connect with each other due to the basic scientific methods each one of them has at their foundation.It may be obvious for first two,but the common observation in modern era is that the latter ones .i.e. Design and Business are also more effective and efficient when they have scientific approaches at their base One of the more important ones among them is experimentation.We regularly do experiments to test our hypotheses in a particular field and the results we get guide us on our path to discovery.

Inspired by this idea i started doing more and more experiments with my regular routine.Absence of any wallet most of the time i’m out of my home compels me to manage all my afternoon meals with a Rs. 100 note with me.Oh, i lost my ATM card too a couple of months back and i never applied for a new one.Why? Because as i figured there is a concept in psychology called “Pain of Paying”, which states that we are more likely to spend more if we have indirect forms of cash like ATM card,Debit card or Credit card for that matter.Now that i don’t have any cards with me i don’t get tempted to just withdraw some good amount from a nearby ATM and spend it on icecreams like crazy (I’m addicted to icecreams).And last but not the least the experiment to see what happens if i don’t use my smartphone for a few days gave surprising results.I didn’t miss it as much, and thanks to all the reduction in continuous distraction, i became much more focused and creative.

Experiments are good.The less we do them,the less we know about ourselves!