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Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

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Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#2

Post by noduerme »

I've been a laptop purist most of my life, and prefer to work outside my house / office. Only recently I got a Big Monitor™ for a mini pc. It's really messed with my head. Now when I look at my 15" laptop everything looks incredibly small. Not just that, but the scroll direction is opposite on the pc, so if I'm working side by side I find myself accidentally scrolling each one backwards, or actually typing into the wrong keyboard. Somehow I survived this long with just laptop screens and I don't think it's a mistake that my focus was preserved through that.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#3

Post by NikolaNovak »

Like everything else in life, it depends :

* I feel the key message here is "single vs multiple windows", not small vs big monitor. I love my 32" curved monitor. I too switched from having three monitors to having just one big monitor and staying with one maximizing window majority of time.

It's also role dependant. I spent few years as ops manager and multiple windows and situational awareness / task parallelization were important. Not saying it's a good thing but it was the name of the game.

Even without task parallelization, multiple windows are important for some roles. If I'm transforming a working excel into executive slide, it's nice to have them both up. If you are good at taking notes, having teams meeting and one note up is a life saver and super power. Etc

But yes - I think core message is "do not assume that prevalent wisdom or what others do, works for your task, job, and personality". As another example, I think dark mode is cool, all my cool friends use it, and it does not work for me on majority of applications. And that's ok... Not everybody is cool like that :-)

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#4

Post by makeitrain »

I’ve had a 38” ultrawide for about a decade.

I’d say monitor position and ergonomics matter way more than screen size.

Navigating a stack of apps with alt+tab, ctrl+tab is extremely efficient. I only miss the extra space when looking at spreadsheets or comparing things in different windows.

Some laptops have a pitiful screen height, avoid those.

Ultrawide is an extra screen size that many web devs forget about. Good design can take advantage of it. But some fluid designs look terrible without constraints.

I ran a vertical setup, with a monitor above my laptop. Not a bad way to go if you want more space for auxiliary apps.

Focus is essential for productivity. Do whatever it takes to get there.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#5

Post by atsaloli »

noduerme wrote: post #2

I've been a laptop purist most of my life, and prefer to work outside my house / office. Only recently I got a Big Monitor™ for a mini pc. It's really messed with my head. Now when I look at my 15" laptop everything looks incredibly small. Not just that, but the scroll direction is opposite on the pc, so if I'm working side by side I find myself accidentally scrolling each one backwards, or actually typing into the w…

You can configure the scroll direction on the Mac. So you can have them both go the same way.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#7

Post by plasma_beam »

noduerme wrote: post #2

I've been a laptop purist most of my life, and prefer to work outside my house / office. Only recently I got a Big Monitor™ for a mini pc. It's really messed with my head. Now when I look at my 15" laptop everything looks incredibly small. Not just that, but the scroll direction is opposite on the pc, so if I'm working side by side I find myself accidentally scrolling each one backwards, or actually typing into the w…

Similarly, laptop purist for the past 25 years. I so much prefer the focus of one thing on my screen at a time, and toggling between apps without having to shift eyes on a large monitor. I also like to pick up and work from starbucks or wherever. I feel like we are in the minority overall but I do know some like us.
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