Breaking a routine can be hard, especially the more ingrained ones. The ones that we’ve been doing for years, the same way every time. If that routine consists of anything related to technology, or even something that technology can impact in some way or another, it might be even harder. Doing something one way, and then being asked to do it another way — without actually needing to do it that way, can be tough.

That’s how I’ve felt about paying for things with my phone. And I don’t mean buying things online while using my phone, but actually using my phone as a device to pay for something, instead of my plastic card.

Mobile payments have been around for awhile, but ever since Apple unveiled its own option with Apple Pay, the market has gone off the rails. Samsung has its own method, which, like Apple, only works with its own devices. Google upped its own efforts with Android Pay. Just recently LG even announced LG Pay, because we can’t have enough things with “Pay” in the title, apparently.

At this point, unless you’re using a BlackBerry device that isn’t running Android (that’s incredibly strange to say) or a Windows Phone/Mobile handset, or just a really old phone, you’ve got a way to pay for things with it.

I just can’t seem to get into it.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve really tried, though. I have been going out of my way to visit restaurants and retailers in my area that I know accept Apple Pay, which, thankfully, is a lot more than it used to be just a few months ago. I live in a pretty small area, but I still find it pretty funny that every time I use Apple Pay, and it’s in front of an employee that hasn’t seen me do it before, they’re kind of surprised to see it in action.

(I think that has more to do with the fact that someone is actually opting to use their phone to pay for something, rather than being wowed by the action itself.)

I can’t really decide whether it’s faster on any discernible level. It is if I already have my phone out of my pocket, yes, but that’s not every time. Either I pull my phone out of my pocket and activate Apple Pay, or I pull my wallet out of my pocket, my card out of that, and then slide it to pay. There is indeed an extra step involved when it comes to using the card, but the aforementioned routine means I’ve got the whole thing down pretty quick these days.

I also need to complain that Apple made Touch ID work too quickly, and I have to  actually adjust the way I activate Apple Pay from the lockscreen so I don’t accidentally unlock it and bypass Pay altogether. That’s a strange thing to complain about, things working too well, but that’s the state of Touch ID at this point.

I want to start using Apple Pay more, and that’s about half the battle, I guess. I know I can’t leave my plastic card at home, and I’m not even sure that I’d want to, but I want to get accustomed to using Apple Pay (or Android Pay, as the case may be in the future) when I can. That means bucking the routine in a big way, and it might not even pan out in the long run, but I’m going to keep giving it a shot and see how it goes.

How about you? Have you been using your phone to pay for things, or are you satisfied sticking with the “old ways?” Let me know!