Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

ounapuu.ee

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 185 posts

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#71

Post by nurettin »

I'm super productive on a 28" with yt constantly open slightly hidden behind the terminal window. EDM, chess videos, speedrun videos, having them in the background actually reduces boredom and lets me achieve more. Laptop is on the side with slack in case there is an alert or an important message.

That said, shout out to the well being app that comes with the latest gnome version! I allow it to force me to get up and walk around for five minutes at awkward times. I do light exercises like push ups and australian pull ups or get coffee while I wait. Being forced off the computer while I'm trying to focus actually makes the day more interesting.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#72

Post by not_your_vase »

Hmmm, I have been thinking about this too. 10 years ago I was more productive when all I had was a bottom of the barrel 21 inch Benq monitor instead of the 3 big monitors I use now. Maybe I was younger. Or maybe I should just switch back to my old screen for a few days, and see what happens...

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#73

Post by acuozzo »

antisthenes wrote: post #27
sibeliuss wrote: post #25

This was my secret weapon for years. My coworkers could never understand my focus and productivity and were always surprised when I said that it was due to working from a tiny laptop screen, and no more.

How do you view HTML/Code/JSONs in other applications? I have an instance of Postman open on my work laptop, and the useful area of the output constitutes maybe 20% of the screen. Do you just scroll around endlessly every 2 seconds? Or do you have amazing eyesight and use tiny fonts?

> How do you view HTML/Code/JSONs in other applications?

Not GP, but I'll be forever thankful to have been able to make my career focused on embedded software.

In my line of work there's nothing to view because there's no visual component at all. If my user(s) "see" the results of my work, then it means I've catastrophically fucked up.

I spend 90% of my time working in vim within XTerm.

The closest I get to UI/UX is a UART debugging interface.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#74

Post by birole »

farfatched wrote: post #69

> One day I was doing work on my laptop on a couch because hitting 30 apparently means that sleeping slightly incorrectly results in debilitating back pain. A factor in my debilitating back pain for me (was 31 and fit; now 37; getting better) was coping with back pain by moving to unergonomic positions like the couch/bed, which led to different and thus compounding compensations, and thus more complex recovery. Now i…

I had the same kind of issues and moving a bit and doing little not so complex exercises helped a lot. I strongly recommend everyone. Health shall always be the first prio

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#75

Post by EnPissant »

prhn wrote: post #19

I learned this lesson a couple decades ago. Managing windows with OS idiosyncrasies becomes a task in itself. However, I've also learned recently it depends what you're doing. Software development, I just want one single maximized window on a single laptop monitor. If I have a near-retina DPI monitor with 120hz+ (I can't deal with low DPI fuzziness and low refresh all day) I'll usually have a 3-4 window layout on a s…

Do you use macOS? That's exactly how I feel on macOS because it is so so bad at this.

Dual 4k 27" monitors on Linux with KDE Plasma near perfect.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#76

Post by rkomorn »

prhn wrote: post #19

I learned this lesson a couple decades ago. Managing windows with OS idiosyncrasies becomes a task in itself. However, I've also learned recently it depends what you're doing. Software development, I just want one single maximized window on a single laptop monitor. If I have a near-retina DPI monitor with 120hz+ (I can't deal with low DPI fuzziness and low refresh all day) I'll usually have a 3-4 window layout on a s…

> There is a minor cognitive hit from switching focus between monitors for things like reading documentation, so I don't like doing that.

Do you not feel like there's a similar hit from switching full screen windows? Or is your documentation within your full screen IDE?

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#77

Post by justonceokay »

riidom wrote: post #55
Leomuck wrote: post #32

Interesting take. I regularly switch between just the laptop and my 3 monitor setup. Sometimes I feel like I could use a 4th one because there is just so much stuff to look at when developing. When I get to my laptop I sometimes feel like I can't be really productive on it. Having to tab all the time is not in itself an issue, but I keep getting lost when I have multiple instances of an app open - e.g. IDE. Say you h…

Single-screen user here. I like virtual desktops in addition to alt-tabbing.

I’m an adamant single-screen alt-tabber. I hardly ever even have two windows open side-by-side.

I’ve always felt that I can alt-tab 2-3 times per second and that it’s faster to not move my eyes. Why look at docs next to code when I can only read one at a time anyway? It’s also embedded in my muscle memory to switch to specific apps by Apple-space typing 2-3 characters. So Firefox is “Apple-space-fi”. It’s so fast I feel slowed by having apps side-by-side.

Anything that requires me dragging windows to their special place is a non-starter. To me that feels like playing with my food. I wonder if this is just because I type very quickly?

I’m aware I’m in the minority.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#79

Post by theshackleford »

oojuliuso wrote: post #67

100% in agreement. Trying to get rid of my 32" 4K. Too much head panning and scanning. I want to comfortably see the entire screen without effort at less than 12 inches away. Creatives likely get some benefit with large displays, but for people who read, code, do productive stuff, it's too much screen, too much pixels. 27" @ WQHD res seems just about right. 4K if you absolutely must.

> I want to comfortably see the entire screen without effort at less than 12 inches away.

I wouldn’t use a display from this close. It’s better for my eyes to have a larger display a little further away. I’m closer to 30” with a 32” and another desk with a 38”

> but for people who read, code, do productive stuff, it's too much screen, too much pixels.

I do all of those things and find the opposite. So it would seem it’s more down to individual preference.

> WQHD res seems just about right.

I would dislike this. Especially for text and even more at closer distances.

Re: Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor

#80

Post by jaffa2 »

Is the poster sure or have they checked that the gains and perceived higher level of focus are not just because of the Change? Rather than the actual change? Maybe in a few months a bigger monitor will suddenly work better not because its bigger but because its a change?

Personally i love a big monitor, i use 32” screens (but only 1 at a time) on my Mac, pc and gaming pc. But in reality i do most ‘real work’ on my 16” mbp. And i drop the res to make everything bigger snd nice to read on the laptop.

Post reply on HN