The greatest thing about my iPhone is that it’s an expert at killing time. I used to always get a little frustrated when my friends were more than 15 minutes late or if the flight was delayed by more than an hour. Now that I’ve got my iPhone, literally two hours can go by and I won’t even know it. Lacking awareness of time is the #1 reason why we should not be using our phones and driving. Take the no texting and driving pledge!

You know you’re addicted to your iPhone when the main thing that prevents you from using your phone more is battery life. Sleeping with your phone or feeling anxiety when the battery meter ticks below 50% are other too sure signs of addiction. But let’s face it, as bloggers, we need our smartphones!

MY SMARTPHONE USAGE

I spent this summer purposefully traveling for six weeks without a laptop because 1) Laptops are cumbersome, and 2) I wanted to see if I could run my online business solely via the phone. It took a lot of pre-writing and scheduling of content, but I’m pleased to say it’s possible, partly because I’ve got access to friend’s laptops intermittently. If I could get rid of all computers and run everything on a phone, I would.

There’s no way I can live without my smartphone now and keep up the lifestyle business while traveling. Besides the need to always have my iPhone, I’ve got another addiction confession. I’m addicted to this mobile game called Clash of Clans by SUPERCELL. I’ll play it every time wasting chance I get. I almost look forward to tardy friends and flight delays now so I can play.

SUPERCELL is based in Helsinki, Finland and has an office here in San Francisco. They have got to have the most addictive, and most profitable mobile game today if Tim Cook from Apple referenced them in their quarterly earnings call two quarters ago! I’m going to meet up with them during the holiday and see if they want to do any promotional stuff with the blogging community if anybody is interested.

One of the best tools I’ve used to help reach financial independence is Personal Capital. They provide great free financial tools for everybody to track their net worth! They allow you to also manage your cash flow and check for pesky investment fees.

Looking to learn how to start your own profitable website? Check out my step-by-step guide on how to start a blog. It’s one of the best things I did in 2009 to help earn extra money and break free from Corporate America!

Updated for 2017 and beyond.