When something is really important, I set multiple alarms and on different devices: my Apple Watch, my phone, Alexa and maybe even the kitchen timer if it’s that critical.

This did remind me of something though. Two years ago, I set two repeating alarms in my watch. One is at 11:30 am and the other at 4:30 pm. They go off every day, and I silence them.

I do not remember why I set those two alarms. Vaguely, I think one might have been to help me to remind my wife of a pill she needed then, but whatever the other was for is lost to me.

Yet I haven’t turned them off. The alarms have somehow become like old school friends in my contacts list. I may not have seen or talked to those people in decades, but I won’t delete them. When these purposeless alarms go off, I smile inwardly, much as I might from seeing a Facebook post from one of those old acquaintances.

Yeah, that’s weird. But I’m not turning them off.