When I woke up yesterday, my Fitbit wasn’t working. (Yes, I’m still on Team Fitbit.) The screen was black, but I knew I’d charged it recently. I started repeatedly flipping my wrist over, hoping the screen would light up. Then I moved into the phase where I tapped the screen harder and harder, hoping my aggression would help solve things. No luck.

I read troubleshooting articles and tried everything I could find, including putting the device in the freezer for several hours. As of this morning, it’s still just showing the Fitbit logo, blinking on and off. It responds to the charger, but I still can’t manage to reboot the thing. I haven’t yet made any attempts today.

I began wearing a Fitbit in 2017. To my nonsurprise, I was immediately enraptured. I love numbers and data and trying to find correlations. I analyzed fluctuations in sleep and heart rate. I was inspired to have solo dance parties midday to get more steps. Sometimes I’d activate the interval training feature, and Ramón and I would do sprints around the neighborhood. My Fitbit almost always served as a source of motivation. Sometimes at night, if I hadn’t yet reached my step goal, I’d stroll around the house. But it never became a source of stress—except when I decided the Braves could only get hits when I was marching around the house, but that wasn’t the Fitbit’s fault.

But yesterday, when it started acting foolish, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.

Normally, when leashing the dogs up for their morning walk, I set a mini goal, like, “Return home with 3,000 steps.”  Throughout the walk, I often play strange little games. I’ll count for 200 steps, then check to see if the Fitbit and I got the same number. Or, when I let the dogs out midday, I might decide, “I’m going to pick up pinecones and sticks until I hit the next thousand.” Although I recognize these as silly challenges, they’re also mindfulness hacks.

I’ve historically been an overthinker who routinely gets trapped in nonproductive, repetitive thought cycles, and my Fitbit has helped me check myself. When I feel the vibration that reminds me to move, I can finally pull away from whatever internet hole I’ve fallen into. Or I’ll play some upbeat music as I put away laundry, dancing my way into the closet to up my step count. The gamification of it all has helped me escape my mind and get into my body. It’s been a good thing for me overall.

Another perk is that I almost always check the time on my Fitbit instead of getting sucked into the I-just-picked-up-my-phone-to-see-what-time-it-is-and-now-I’m-looking-at-memories-from-2014-and-wondering-which-prescription-I-got-a-text-about-refilling trap. I’m a fan of anything that minimizes the amount of time drained by obsessively looking at my phone.

However, a part of me felt relieved yesterday. My Fitbit makes it easier to fall into the productivity trap that I’m trying to climb my way out of. My worth doesn’t correlate with my step count or the number of calories burned during my workout. I could focus more on “being” rather than “doing.” It also quieted that voice in my head that tells me what I “should” be doing—i.e., something to accumulate steps.

My Fitbit is sitting on my desk and, as I wrote this, the screen began to display a white X in a red circle. Something tells me that’s not great. If it doesn’t come back to life, I’m not sure whether I’ll replace it. After eight years of tracking, maybe it’s time for a break.

I suppose I’ll spend yet another day flipping my naked wrist to see what time it is.