I'm definitely on the one monitor train. For the longest time, I didn't even use an external monitor, just the one on my laptop. I like having a consistent experience when working from the office, or working remote. In this way, my flow is always the same, no matter where I'm working at :D
Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
31–40 of 137 posts
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#32I prefer a single monitor not just because it's more convenient, but because it really does improve focus. My screen represents my train of thought. I don't have 3 applications and 4+ files splattered in front of me. I have a single application, with no more than 2 files, that represents exactly where I am at that moment in my thinking. And I move from screen to screen fluidly with Spaces. I also use a large font siz…
> And I move from screen to screen fluidly with Spaces. > I get so frustrated looking at coworkers' screens with 4+ files open, all in tiny text. I think, how can they work like that? That's what I think when I see someone working like you, flipping through multiple spaces, scrolling up and down files. To me, spaces add more overhead - I have to remember in which space various running applications or their windows ar…
>That's what I think when I see someone working like you, flipping through multiple spaces, scrolling up and down files. To me, spaces add more overhead - I have to remember in which space various running applications or their windows are open.
Not if you always keep the same apps in the same place in spaces (I keep: browser: #1, terminal #2, editor: #3).
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#33I also disagree. I work in government affairs, which involves a lot of legislative research and analysis. Having three monitors is extremely useful, particularly when I'm trying to bring together multiple ideas into one.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#34The prevailing assumption is multiple monitors equals one computer with multiple outputs but I've usually run multiple machines. Financially its a rounding error WRT cost, I get more use out of old systems before the environmental damage of recycling them. I can run different architectures simultaneously. If the new machine fails on burnin testing the old machine is literally on its left side so I can keep right on working.
Evolution in hardware and software is very slow now compared to the 80s/90s/00s. My wingman PCs are perfectly adequate at displaying data sheet PDFs or acting as SSH terminals or normal web browsing.
If you're worried about electrical power my son has a raspberry pi desktop and that works fine. It can do everything we did with a computer in the 00s, which is pretty much unchanged today... Mostly he types school reports because the real keyboard is better than any ipad keyboard.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#35I disagree heavily - Having a secondary monitor with documentation / work plans on it is enormously useful as you can glance at it without having to do anything more special than turn your head. In fact, I would go so far as to say that three monitors is optimum since you can have your code on one, the output of your code (continuous tests/hot reload/etc) on another and documentation on the last allowing you to see a…
and a fourth monitor for slack/email/... seems like it would work very well also.
I currently have 3 monitors at home (thinking about going to 4) and at work with 2 I definitely miss having a third available.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#36There's a raft of articles where people share their forays into minimalism. Minimalism is mostly a way to show cultural value, like wearing black turtlenecks or making your children take piano lessons. We add maxims like "less is more" to justify these things but "less is more" is such a vacuous justification you can discard it without thought.
Yngwie Malmsteen's pithy thoughts on "less is more" (very short): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZ48AE3TOI
If you want data, there are a few usability studies on the use of multiple monitors. The general consensus is that bigger monitors are better and two monitors are better than one, three or more monitors might be too many. These studies are easy enough to find on Google so I'm not going to link them here. Data will always beat maxims.
On a personal note, I find it easier to work with multiple monitors rather than one larger monitor, possibly due to software support. I'll want two web browsers up, side by side, on one monitor, and then the other monitor can hold editors and terminal windows. There tends to be pretty good software support for dividing a monitor in half, which supports this workflow very well on two monitors, but dividing a monitor in four is a bit rare. Stuff I don't really need like mail, music players, and the like get relegated to other virtual desktops.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#37I disagree heavily - Having a secondary monitor with documentation / work plans on it is enormously useful as you can glance at it without having to do anything more special than turn your head. In fact, I would go so far as to say that three monitors is optimum since you can have your code on one, the output of your code (continuous tests/hot reload/etc) on another and documentation on the last allowing you to see a…
tl; dr; A single application does not represent a single mental task/context.
Yup! I work on web applications and run a three monitor setup roughly like this:
* Web Ui with what I'm currently working and the occasional api doc * Editor with code and probably a few shell tabs * Third for incidentals (hipchat, chrome dev tools, Jira Ticket, etc.)
On top of that I'll use Virtual desktops to switch between task sets or email etc.. Desktop 1 - Email/Jira Overview/HipChat/Toggl Desktop 2-7 - What I'm working on right now or "quick bug" type stuff Desktop 8 - pianobar, loose gmail/inbox window
The middle desktop set is usually pretty sparse, but it helps. One monitor doesn't have enough "logical" real estate to to maintain the context of a single problem for me. I wind up using multiple desktops and bouncing back and forth between them all the time, sometimes several times over a single edit because I loose context in the desktop switch.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#38>> to display multiple things simultaneously? If my email or social media feeds are available at a glance, then I’ll check them constantly
Just had no desire to read further, I started with the impression that there will be some strong arguments against multi monitor setup. May be for the author's needs a single monitor suffices, he earlier had a multi monitor setup, so he ended up using the excess which made him unproductive. That is not a multi monitor setup being useless problem, it is a problem of you not having a use case for multi monitor setup.
Of course if one is using a multi monitor setup to do multi tasking, that is not really recommended. But there are many tasks where a multi monitor setup makes you feel how you lived without one for long? Sample: When I work on an Xcode app, I have one primary 25" monitor fully dedicated to Xcode (IB, editor, inspectors etc) and the second 22" monitor dedicated to Xcode docs, browser with relevant docs/tabs (no email etc), terminal all arranged with Moom. Trying to do this on a 13/15" real estate will make me work at a snail's pace or even negative pace for the constant switching.
>> Deep work is becoming increasingly hard in our distraction
I think Cal Newport must be having a free healthy daily dose of laughter given every Tom is referring to Deep Work when talking about Focus!
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#39I remember when two monitors were a new thing that someone did a productivity study and found that getting 50% more real estate (i.e., half again as many pixels or a few more inches diagonal) on your single monitor was as effective as having a second monitor the same size as your old one. Personally, I thought having multiple wide aspect ratio monitors was a complete waste. I don't turn my head that far when I work n…
Heh, I run two 30", one landscape, one portrait. I have 6 code windows open on the landscape and I can run a browser with the viewport set to 1280x720 and have a crapload of space below for the debugger/console. Below that, a term used for transferring my current iteration to my test server. On the other side of the landscape monitor I have an old 20" 4:3 rotated to portrait mode, two term windows, one tails and the other is in psql.
Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors
#40> Virtual Desktops For the Win
There's a few things about virtual desktops on OS X (the OS I use at work) that just absolutely kill them for me:
1. OS X will re-order keyboard inputs when the inputs contain virtual desktop commands. That is, if you have two terminals open, one in one desktop, and one in another, and you type ^→¹ "hi", where "hi" ends up depends on how quickly you type the command. If you know the desktop on the right has a terminal, and you know what you want to run in that terminal, you have to switch, wait for the animation to complete, and then type the command; it's an artificial limitation on your speed.
2. OS X will re-order desktops. Which means I never know where, in this virtual space, the desktop I'm seeking is. The latest version of OS X made this even more annoying, because now if you do an exposé, you don't get thumbnails by default, so you can't even see where the desktop might have gotten moved to. (You have to grab the mouse and hover over the darn things.)
Compare this to the rather simplistic multidesktop functionality in MATE: desktops don't move. The switch is instant and keyboard input order is maintained. The space is 3D, not 2D. There are small thumbnails in your tray. (I could wish for some things from MATE, in particular, I don't know how/if it's possible to reorder whole desktops.)
[1]: (change to desktop to the right)
(Also, OS X will occasionally just get stuck in the middle of a desktop switch. As in, I'll have no hands on the mouse/keyboard, and I'll be looking at the left half of one desktop and the right half of another.)
Edit: I forgot 3. OS X will combine desktops if the set of attached displays changes. I really wish I could have it just move the desktops to the laptop, not combine them. (Also, I really wish that when the external display was reattached, that the windows would restore the size and layout they had; as it is, today they all get resized to the size of the smaller laptop screen — which makes sense while they're there, but once the external is back, I want the sizes back too.) I have no idea how MATE compares here.