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> I think three monitors is distracting Could you elaborate on this? Specifically, do you feel that having three/multiple monitors is necessarily distracting (

by fouric 6y ago

> I think three monitors is distracting Could you elaborate on this? Specifically, do you feel that having three/multiple monitors is necessarily distracting (no matter what you do with them) or just encourages distraction? My experience is the latter, and that if I am disciplined and only put windows from one task at a time on all three, then I have no more temptation to be distracted than I usually have at my internet-enabled glowbox, but maybe I'm an outlier.

shoes_for_thee 6y ago
My experience is that my attention span sucks enough that there's not a functional difference between encouraging distraction and being necessarily distracting. I do basically all my work on my laptop without an external display. I use two displays for some specific tasks where I need to look at two things at once.
Scarblac 6y ago
So it needs more discipline to use them, and I need to apply discipline for so many things already. I'm much better off with just the one screen.
gherkinnn 6y ago
As for me, three monitors is just too much information. There's no thing I do that requires me to see so many things at once. I do make extensive use of virtual desktops instead. I like one large 4k monitor right in front of me, and the window manager is set to allow splitting windows in thirds. Laptop off to the side with music, terminal, and other auxiliary stuff.
berkes 6y ago
For me, I can't use three monitors. It just takes too much brain-cycles to process and remember "where that window is". I can process two fine: one "the workspace" the other "the reference/product/outcome/tests". I tried really hard to teach myself structure, but with three monitors, I find myself always loosing windows, losing the cursor etc. Hacks like "find my cursor" (not default on Linux) help, but I'd rather have a clean mental map of where my cursor, focus and windows are, at all times. What stuck best was having the third monitor hold the API/documentation/reference but still, the mental power to keep all my whereabouts mapped in my head were just too much. Also note that I went from one to three monitors, so this is not "just too used to two monitors to ever change" it was the other way around. Ubuntu has nice tiling features without requiring tiling for everything ([meta]-[→] and [meta]-[←]) that allow my now-ingrained use of two monitors on my laptop-screen when I'm somewhere without a second monitor. Another thing that I disliked about my three-monitor-setup: it does not map in any way to a single monitor: using virtual desktops worked, somewhat but still too different.

by fouric 6y ago

shoes_for_thee 6y ago

My experience is that my attention span sucks enough that there's not a functional difference between encouraging distraction and being necessarily distracting. I do basically all my work on my laptop without an external display. I use two displays for some specific tasks where I need to look at two things at once.

Scarblac 6y ago

So it needs more discipline to use them, and I need to apply discipline for so many things already. I'm much better off with just the one screen.

gherkinnn 6y ago

As for me, three monitors is just too much information. There's no thing I do that requires me to see so many things at once. I do make extensive use of virtual desktops instead. I like one large 4k monitor right in front of me, and the window manager is set to allow splitting windows in thirds. Laptop off to the side with music, terminal, and other auxiliary stuff.

berkes 6y ago

For me, I can't use three monitors. It just takes too much brain-cycles to process and remember "where that window is". I can process two fine: one "the workspace" the other "the reference/product/outcome/tests". I tried really hard to teach myself structure, but with three monitors, I find myself always loosing windows, losing the cursor etc. Hacks like "find my cursor" (not default on Linux) help, but I'd rather have a clean mental map of where my cursor, focus and windows are, at all times. What stuck best was having the third monitor hold the API/documentation/reference but still, the mental power to keep all my whereabouts mapped in my head were just too much. Also note that I went from one to three monitors, so this is not "just too used to two monitors to ever change" it was the other way around. Ubuntu has nice tiling features without requiring tiling for everything ([meta]-[→] and [meta]-[←]) that allow my now-ingrained use of two monitors on my laptop-screen when I'm somewhere without a second monitor. Another thing that I disliked about my three-monitor-setup: it does not map in any way to a single monitor: using virtual desktops worked, somewhat but still too different.