Name:Date:
How to use this sheet. People attach who they are to the tools they use — a phone, an app, a brand. The tool is the vehicle. The only question that matters is what you are doing with it.
- List the five tools you use most. Apps count. So does a notebook, a car, a group chat.
- For each one, name the human problem it solves for you — not what it does, what it is for.
STEP 1
The five tools
Be specific. "My phone" is not a tool; "the group chat with my friends" is.
| Tool | The human problem it solves for me | Hours a week (guess) |
|---|
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STEP 2
The swap test
If a tool disappeared tomorrow, what would you still be doing?
1.Tool I would replace in a day, because the goal is mine:
2.Tool I would feel lost without — and what that says about where the goal lives:
Clarify — If the sentence survives swapping the tool's name out, it was about you. If it collapses, it was about the tool.
→ Flip to page 2: your own way.
Name:Date:
Technology has finally reached the point where it can bend to how you actually want to work. Most people never find out, because nobody showed them they were allowed to want it.
1One place I work the tool's way instead of mine
A default you never chose: notifications, an order, a routine an app decided for you.
2What my way would look like
If it fit you instead, what would change? Small is fine.
3What I want to be known for
Finish the sentence: "Not the person who uses ____, but the person who ____."
4One thing I will change this week
A setting, a habit, a tool you drop or pick up on purpose. Yours to keep.
⭐ A week later
Did the change hold? What did it give back?
You are borrowing the technology. The mission is yours.
FOR MENTOR USE — READ FIRST (not printed with the student sheet)
Mentor Guide
Companion to Don't Let Your Technology Define You on tervik.org/journey
1. What this sheet builds
Separating the tool from the purpose. The essay's test — swap the vendor's name out and see if the sentence survives — becomes a way for a student to see which of their goals are theirs and which belong to an app's defaults.
2. Running it
- No judgement about screen time or particular apps. A game can solve a real human problem (company, rest). The sheet asks what it is for, not whether it is allowed.
- Step 2 is the one to talk through. "Lost without it" is not bad — it shows where the goal lives, and whether it could live somewhere sturdier.
3. The debrief
- Page 2 Q3 is the identity question. Let them write the second half slowly; it is the sentence they will remember.
- Make Q4 tiny and reversible. A changed notification setting is a fine first win.
- Return a week later for the last box.
4. Your own tools
If you can name one default you never chose in your own work, say it. It shows this is not a lecture about young people and phones.