For the last month I’ve been wearing a mechanical watch that’s opened my eyes to my own mortality. I call it my “Day Timer” and it’s been incredibly enjoyable to wear.

What does a wristwatch have to do with mortality?

About a month ago, I bought a Seiko Presage Sharp Edged Series GMT at the Narita airport in Japan while on a business trip. A GMT is a special kind of mechanical watch for travelers with an extra hand that sweeps around the clock face every 24 hours to display the hour in a second time zone using a second ring of numbers around the bezel of the watch face. In the image below, the red hand provides this function.

However instead of tracking an alternate time zone, I use the GMT hand to track how much time I have left in a day. At any time, I can glance at my wrist and understand how shockingly quickly time slips away.

It keeps me mindful of a few things:

1 – We never get our time back.

2 – The day we are living right now is the youngest that we will ever be, so we should probably make it meaningful and useful.

3 – We’re bombarded continuously with things that want to occupy our time, and it’s important to have tools to pull us back to what’s most important.

Mortality is about recognizing that our time is finite. Understanding how limited our time is on a daily scale informs how I think about time in a lifespan.

How do you turn a GMT wristwatch into a “Day Timer”?

Instead of tracking a 24-hour period in a second time zone, I use the GMT hand to track the 24 hours in my day. I set the “0” hour to when I start to get ready for sleep, which is around 8pm when I don’t have other activities, aiming to be in bed by around 8:30pm and asleep before 9pm.

By the time I wake up around 5am, I’m on hour “9” in my day. Even after a month I still feel a bit of shock and anxiety that around 40% of my time has evaporated.

It’s mid-way through hour “11” by the time I’m seeing my kids at breakfast. Work meetings generally start around hour “12”, around 8am, though sometimes I’ll meet earlier.

Soon it’s noon, hour “16”. I’ve been up for 7 hours. Two thirds of my day is over! 😲

The hands of my watch are constantly in motion. Soon it’s late afternoon at hour “20” and I can’t believe how quickly time has flown by.

Before using a day timer, 4-5pm felt early. As if I had lots of time to do things. But now it’s clear I only have 3-4 hours left in my day–less than 15% of time–for connecting with family after everyone’s home again for dinner.

Why not use your Apple Watch?

True. The Apple Watch includes a digital GMT hour option that is basically identical to the Seiko Presage GMT. So why buy a mechanical watch with less capability?

This is another point on mortality.

An Apple Watch is going to last a few years before the internal battery degrades to the point where it can’t hold a charge. The software upgradability will likely fail in less than a decade.

However, a mechanical wristwatch can last generations with care. My brother has our grandfather’s Omega Seamaster from maybe the 1950s or 60s and it’s still keeping time.

When I was in Tokyo last month, I saw the Seiko Museum in Ginza, which has watches dating back decades, clocks dating back centuries, and even a sun dial.

I bought the Seiko GMT Presage at the Narita airport as I was flying out. It’s my first ever GMT, and it was at an excellent price–below the second hand resell value on Chrono 24.

My hope is to pass down this watch for generations. If I lose it along the way, I think I’d be able to buy a replacement on the second hand market as a vintage piece, since the quality and production is pretty high on these.

When I look at the watch, or perhaps at its future replacement, I’ll think about the days I spent traveling for work, meeting friends, customers, and partners, seeing all sorts of cities and new environments. I’ll also think about time with my family, on gatherings, vacations and life events. There would probably be some peeks at the piece in photos through the years as well.

I want a physical heirloom on my desk that connects me instantly to meaningful days I’ve lived.

While in some ways mechanical wristwatches are an anachronism, there’s a small number of watch nerds in the world that think of them as the intersection between engineering, art, history and identity.

Someday I hope to have grand kids, and great grand kids, and great great grand kids who will bring this watch to school for show-and-tell and say something about the life I lived with this piece on my wrist. My hope is this mechanical watch, after age appropriate servicing from Seiko, continues to tick like a beating heart on those days.

If I want a Day Timer, which should I get?

I tend to buy things based on utility, price and preference. I can share my thoughts as a dad of teen and tween-aged girls living in California, who works in enterprise software, travels a lot, and needs to wear blazers and suits occasionally:

Entry-level: Apple Watch – If you want to experience a Day Timer effect, an Apple Watch configured with a GMT hand connecting the end of your day to a 24-hour clock is an easy way to start. Other digital watches could work as well.

Work watch: Seiko Presage GMT – If you’re regularly at conferences in a blazer or suit, I think a neutral colored Seiko GMT Presage is a solid choice and excellent value if you’re looking for a Day Timer.

It’s aesthetically versatile and can pair with most formal and casual clothing choices. It has a credible brand and history, while also being affordable enough–on the mechanical watch spectrum. It lets you express an enthusiasm about horology while not coming across as “flexing” on whoever you meet should you start to talk about watches.

This watch is known to be a somewhat extraordinary value compared with similar pieces on the market. A Rolex Explorer II is a well-known GMT watch with similar functionality (a GMT hand and a day-of-month function), though at nearly 8-10x the cost. Moreover, the Seiko adds a 45-hour power reserve indicator, to provide more functionality than its high priced alternative, and it blends better with work wear.

Fun watch: Seiko 5 GMT – About a month after I got my first GMT, I got my second. The Seiko 5 GMT is a simpler, more casual version of the Presage, and I now have this option of wearing a super fun “pop” of yellow color on my wrist, while keeping my Day Timer functions. I can literally look at my watch and put a smile on my face any time I want.

Side note: While I’m including links to Amazon for pricing, if you’re really interested in getting one I’d recommend finding a physical watch store, even if it’s a bit more expensive. I find it a more enjoyable experience, you get to learn about different watches, you’ll have a story to share, and you can have them size the piece for you. If you do buy online instead, consider getting a watch sizing kit to fit the piece properly at home.

What else can I do with a Day Timer?

When I’m a conference and meeting people, I find wearing a mechanical watch–instead of a generic Apple Watch–gives an extra dimension on which to connect with others.

In general, people enjoy talking about their wristwatches. Often people have owned whatever they’re wearing for years, they’ll remember where they got it, what makes it special. Often watches are connected to moments of personal history, that branch out into a meaningful stories about what people care about, what’s influenced them in life, leading up to the decision on why to wear that specific watch to the specific moment in which you’re meeting.

Wearing a mechanical watch signals you have something in common to talk about. That you’re both part of a little secret club of people who choose not to be constantly pulling their phone out of their pocket to check the time.

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A mechanical watch isn’t for everyone. A Day Timer specifically is pretty advanced, can be expensive, and it’s somewhat single purpose. Few people in the world will find it valuable enough for the work involved. I might not always be wearing one either.

However, my Day Timer has been a joy and and an eye-opener. Enough so that I wanted to write about it.

It’s how I decided to spend my time this morning, and it’s been worth it.