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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

#171

Post by foobarchu »

pliesfan97 wrote: post #162

My window management hack that I’m surprised I’ve not seen mentioned is that in macOS you can map each numpad key to a separate desktop. You essentially get a desktop control pad free with your keyboard, since I don’t know any SWE who uses needs their numpad. My wish is that macOS would let you group desktops together in a way that solved both of these problems: - Switching desktops across multiple monitors at once -…

> since I don’t know any SWE who uses needs their numpad

Not while coding, but I use mine very frequently in the other 60% of my job.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#172

Post by piperswe »

microtonal wrote: post #110
ActorNightly wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but if you get a DisplayLink dongle it works perfectly. LOL Im currently typing this on a work issued Macbook thats about 2 years old at this point, and 40% of the time, when I plug in a cable, it decides it wants to turn on and turn off hdmi output in rapid succession.

I always use DisplayPort over USB-C DP-Alt (or Thunderbolt on some displays) and I literally never have a problem across various LG, Dell and Apple Studio Displays. MacBook Pro M1 Pro or MacBook Pro M5 Sounds like something is really broken in your setup? On the other hand, sleeping/waking Thunderbolt displays on my ThinkPad with Linux regularly leads to kernel panics, across several kernel versions.

DisplayPort over DP Alt Mode != DisplayLink. DisplayLink is a way to send compressed video streams over a normal USB connection.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#173

Post by yunnpp »

For a long time at my previous job, I had an empty desk that I would deploy my laptop onto every morning, then pack and leave the desk empty again when I left. People jokingly asked whether I had been fired when they saw the empty desk. A regular 15" screen and no clutter in my field of view greatly improved my concentration.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#174

Post by yunnpp »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #89

I spent decades completely happy with Cmd+Tab. Now I’m helping someone develop a trading system and I need to see several log files simultaneously, a broker GUI, and neovim. Once I realized that in order to answer a single question I needed to Cmd+Tab at least four times, often more, I added two monitors and it’s dramatically lowered my stress level. FYI, on older MacBooks you can’t add more than one extra screen, bu…

M-x on a tiling window manager. I agree Cmd+Tab / Ctrl+Tab is inefficient. Linear vs constant time context switch.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#175

Post by ekropotin »

mrob wrote: post #154
cookiengineer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I love my old cheap 1080p monitors so much is because they need less organizational overhead compared to a large 4k monitor where you constantly have to fix UI scaling bugs and zoom in/out, force different fonts for shitty web pages etc. I am never gonna sway away from i3 [1], a notification free tiled window desktop system is just way too convenient. When I have to bootup a Windows VM for work (I am a mal…

1080p is plenty for text-based work if you're not using Chinese or Japanese. It looks as sharp as 4K when you disable text anti-aliasing.

It absolutely doesn’t look as sharp as 4k, even on 22” inch screen

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#176

Post by mrob »

ekropotin wrote: post #175
mrob wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1080p is plenty for text-based work if you're not using Chinese or Japanese. It looks as sharp as 4K when you disable text anti-aliasing.

It absolutely doesn’t look as sharp as 4k, even on 22” inch screen

I've seen 4K monitors in person. Disabling anti-aliasing (with full hinting enabled) on a 1080p monitor increases text sharpness to equal that of anti-aliased text on a 4K monitor. The only drawback is that the font no longer approximates the shape of printed text. This doesn't matter except in the outlier cases of Chinese and Japanese, which use some extremely visually intricate characters.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#177

Post by ulcer »

pliesfan97 wrote: post #162

My window management hack that I’m surprised I’ve not seen mentioned is that in macOS you can map each numpad key to a separate desktop. You essentially get a desktop control pad free with your keyboard, since I don’t know any SWE who uses needs their numpad. My wish is that macOS would let you group desktops together in a way that solved both of these problems: - Switching desktops across multiple monitors at once -…

Maybe I am just too fussy, but the sliding animation that comes from switching is so disorienting and slow to me. I use multiple desktops a lot and sometimes I need to dart back and forth pretty quick and my god does that blurry transition grate on me. It really makes it feel like I am using a dusty old computer instead of a brand new four thousand dollar top of the line machine.

I have found some hacky options to do this, but they are just too janky for my taste. I would love to have Apple implement this at the OS level so I don't need to keep experimenting with Aerospace/Rectangle/Hammerspoon... Apple please allow me to disable the destop transition animations and make your OS feel snappy for once.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#178

Post by miguno »

FrojoS wrote: post #149

Guys, this is a well known and under utilized effect of human psycho physiology. Visually focusing on a single point, small object, or just small visual field (aka tunnel vision) increases mental focus. AFAIK it’s also one of the reasons we all get “glued” to smartphone screens. In this paper, more than 20 deg visual field for a screen and subject performance went down: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/a…

So that's why Counter-Strike pros are nose-to-the-monitor close to their screens.

Example of player Yekindar: https://preview.redd.it/yekindar-xd-v0-zsm7fzd5jd5e1.jpeg?wi...

"I need you to be focused!"

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#179

Post by johnea »

FrojoS wrote: post #149

Guys, this is a well known and under utilized effect of human psycho physiology. Visually focusing on a single point, small object, or just small visual field (aka tunnel vision) increases mental focus. AFAIK it’s also one of the reasons we all get “glued” to smartphone screens. In this paper, more than 20 deg visual field for a screen and subject performance went down: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/a…

Here on HN, this should obviously be considered a market opportunity!

I'm considering a startup to make millennial blinders:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinders

Of course, being an aging boomer, using an 85" monitor isn't decreasing my focus at all. I just look at the part of the screen I'm using at the moment.

Personally I find it helpful to be able to spread windows out on that giant screen so that any one of them is instantly available at a glance (and I still use 8 "desktops"). Of course, I also don't reboot, well maybe once or twice a year after a kernel update. So setting all those windows up isn't something I do every time I sit at the computer.

I do feel sorry for the generations born into internet brain damage (seriously). My son is GenZ and (thankfully) struggles with the typical symptoms less than others, but is still affected.

This is clearly a consequence of growing up with constantly network connected hand held computers, and the maliciously crafted web platforms that exploited that constant connectedness.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#180

Post by DiscourseFan »

FrojoS wrote: post #149

Guys, this is a well known and under utilized effect of human psycho physiology. Visually focusing on a single point, small object, or just small visual field (aka tunnel vision) increases mental focus. AFAIK it’s also one of the reasons we all get “glued” to smartphone screens. In this paper, more than 20 deg visual field for a screen and subject performance went down: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/a…

Yeah I do find it easier and less tiresome to read on my phone.
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