My setup is similar to this except I use XMonad on Arch instead of i3wm. Each desktop is a "context". I have rxvt on the first one, firefox on the second, emacs

My setup is similar to this except I use XMonad on Arch instead of i3wm. Each desktop is a "context". I have rxvt on the first one, firefox on the second, emacs on the third, the other desktops are for transient stuff. 95% of the time I use the fullscreen layout. It helps me focus. At work I use OS X and compared to my setup at home, it's passable at best.