Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

I can hardly imagine being productive on a single monitor anymore. After having three 19" monitors for a couple very productive years, I tried switching to two 27" monitors. It added up to more space, to be sure, but I spent way too much time managing windows.

And then I took a job with a startup and bought a laptop since they wanted me to show up in the office on occasion, and working with one monitor was like driving with one eye open. I started to get better at it, but there was so much extra effort involved in context switching. Even as it became muscle memory, it didn't come close to beating a simple glance to the left or right.

They offered a separate monitor, but I chose to go back to working from home and switched to three 22" monitors, which has been perfect for years (though I want at least one more now for testing non-linux apps).

Focus has nothing to do with monitor layout. I have three monitors, but only one thing is happening at any given time.

When I'm coding, email, slack, etc, are all off. It's a terminal on my left with git, and logs, a fullscreen IDE in the middle, and documentation and test application on the right.

When I'm shopping, it's reviews in the middle, shopping cart on the left, and search on the right.

When I'm catching up on slack / email, they're both open on separate screens with an extra for research (Github, etc).

When I'm editing photos, its the collection on the left, editor in the middle, research (editor docs, etc) on the right.

Focus is all about strictly doing one thing at a time. Multiple monitors is about switching contexts without losing focus. The only problem I have now is that I don't blink often enough.

Also, to the point about "Same Workflow When Remote", I just choose not to work while traveling any more. I'm not as productive, nor do I want to learn to be more productive while on the road. That used to be a dream for me; And then I really tried it; And I really sucked at it. I'd rather have my sit/stand desk, comfortable chair, and tea pot - all optimized for focus - than try to drive uncomfortably with one eye open.

I use only the laptop monitor. Originally I did this because I did a lot of live support, and having to undock was a slight impediment to going to somebody's desk to work on an issue with them. The communication was more important. Once I got used to using just the monitor, I was happy having the same setup everywhere. Every now and then a manager tries to give me a giant monitor, but I just pass it off to the next engineer that might want one.

There was another benefit, too. Even though I get that it's convenient to have docs/browser/editor up at once, I can really only LOOK at one thing at a time, and I found that I was getting lazy. If my brain can only hold things that I am actively looking at, then I'm not thinking very deeply about them. Now granted, I'm old. As I age I notice things like tiny short-cuts that make me a little weaker over time. In your 20s or 30s, you have almost infinite capacity. You may not notice the top line dropping a little bit. In my experience, external monitors made me a little weaker. Keeping my brain sharp allows me to keep up much better.

Virtual desktops + Pomodoro work wonders for me, focus wise.

I still to have a secondary monitor again, though.

I've a windows 10 multi monitor set up, I've never experienced any of the issues you describe.

I mean, this sounds fine if you are able to actually focus on a single thing. Leaving aside for the moment the desirability or practicality of burying social media and other such distractions, there are times when work itself requires displaying more information than I can fit on a single screen. I usually have a code editor, one or more tmux sessions, a cloud console web UI, etc., and I have to move back and forth and reference different things in those windows constantly. It's a lot less work to shift my eyes and mouse to the left than it is to cycle through buried windows.