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“Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
61–70 of 188 posts
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#62I've found mostly the opposite. Some well arranged windows are quite a nice anchor, I'm working on what's there in front of me. It's like bowling with bumpers in place, instead of the ball going in the gutter, the structure keeps it in the lane. I've found it necessary to devote time to cleaning and clearing windows, and sometimes I forget what's going on, and as I'm closing out the windows because I forgot what was…
I'd be pretty lost without my pretty crazy zellij setup.
I thought this might be a neat JetBrains thing. Turns out this is an even cooler tmux.
Thanks for sharing, I'm gonna grab this right away.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#63I've found mostly the opposite. Some well arranged windows are quite a nice anchor, I'm working on what's there in front of me. It's like bowling with bumpers in place, instead of the ball going in the gutter, the structure keeps it in the lane. I've found it necessary to devote time to cleaning and clearing windows, and sometimes I forget what's going on, and as I'm closing out the windows because I forgot what was…
I understand why people organize things around them, also on their computer. While I am working I also do it. On Gnome I have 1-2 desktops per tasks when working on multiple things. As you say say, they are "the map of the work", nice metaphor. But, jumping in the next morning I get sort of overwhelmed, especially with multiple tasks ongoing.
Over time I have come to the ritual of closing everything in the evening (end of afternoon really), what is still running is on servers in Tmux labeled with the task number, sometimes I leave Readme's open with instructions to myself (vscode or obsidian), but starting clean works better for me (like OP). I sort of slowly load the context in the morning and start to ramp up. That is what it feels like. It works for me. When I boot up, I have 5 empty desktops and zero tabs open in the browser. But it is all filled up relatively quickly again. I do have rituals/rules, like secondary, longer running tasks (ie long running data analysis workflows) are usually on desktop 4. Element/Slack/Signal on desktop 5, outlook/teams (for current client) + other side stuff in browser on desktop 1. Desktop 2 is very dynamic, usually where I spend most time, it overflows onto desktop 3 when I need more space, both are filled with terminals, vscode, browser windows. I have my laptop screen on the side, but for some reason never use it... I just use my Iiyama ultra-wide with quarter tiling (probably would tile more if Gnome would support it, KDE did, loved that, but love the simplicity of Gnome more).
I'm considering making 6 desktops haha. Oh, I really can't work with dynamic desktops, as I "need" some stuff to be on the final desktop, far away yet easy to reach.
Current client has an Excel file for tasks. Really hate that. Tried pushing her to MS Tasks, didn't really work well. But I also need a large space for context and subtasks. For some data analysis tasks I made a small Django system, with a page (model/view) per dataset. That works very well for us, it was very much worth the effort to set that up. The view grabs in data from several locations so it also helps me quickly look things up.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#64Every day I work on my main project, I clear my desk completely, take out a small notepad and write my overriding goal, and my next step goal, and then make a list of tasks for that next step goal. Then I work. Writing the major goal every day is important to not let sub-goals overshadow it. Writing the immediate goal every day is important because together the two goals create a very clear direction of action with a…
I have gone into doing this form time to time. And they were good times, thanks for reminding me, I'll start doing this again. I'm now 44 and always wanted to be fully digital and modern, but nothing beats the notepad and pen for me still, for certain small tasks at least.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#65My secret was vibe coding my own jira type if system. It makes sense to no one, but it feels very intuitive to me. It has features like caching all my google docs shared with me so I can search by title. Ironically, it works better than google drive’s search. Anyway I did this because our version of jira isn’t great, so all the features I found complicated, I put that in my system. For the rest, I use jira because wi…
I did something similar in Django for an overview of analyzed datasets. It's messy, does not have all the tests and still runs in development mode. But man did I set it up quickly and man does it help me keep an overview/find stuff fast.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#66Wonder how many people don’t even shut down their work computer.
I shut down work computer every day and every day in the morning I start it up.
Sometimes if I really have something I didn’t finish and want to start on early in the morning then I leave it running with all apps open.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#67rm -rf ~
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#68I've found mostly the opposite. Some well arranged windows are quite a nice anchor, I'm working on what's there in front of me. It's like bowling with bumpers in place, instead of the ball going in the gutter, the structure keeps it in the lane. I've found it necessary to devote time to cleaning and clearing windows, and sometimes I forget what's going on, and as I'm closing out the windows because I forgot what was…
I think it's where one plugs the external world into in their brain. For my daily work, I plug the desktop to my current thought stream (or short term memory?). Anything not immediately relevant to what I'm thinking about is an unnecessary speed bump or stutter in my speech, which means minimal window decoration, no status bars, ... and anything not visible can be summoned by a quick single "label" somehow, not by navigating a structure. This is more similar to what the author suggested.
{And if I'm getting what you said correctly} What you described, is similar to how I organize my drawers in my room. Everything is visible at once, but navigating them usually takes 2 or 3 steps. Without this visual map I'm completely lost.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#69Wonder how many people don’t even shut down their work computer. I shut down work computer every day and every day in the morning I start it up. Sometimes if I really have something I didn’t finish and want to start on early in the morning then I leave it running with all apps open.
The Windows Update lady comes in once a month to give me a clean working surface.
Re: “Nothing” is the secret to structuring your work
#70Every morning I close all work browser tabs from prior day. 99% of them I don't need again/can just reopen if I need. The 1% I'll note on a todo list or keep open somewhere.
My office mate turns off his computer every night when he leaves, turns it back on again in the morning. Annoys the admins because they like to schedule updates at night.
I do this too. And start the day with a `sudo nixos-rebuild boot --upgrade` and reboot if needed. Feels so fresh, like rebooting the brain.