I usually run eight desktops on my machine. Most of the time, half of them sit empty until I need to switch tasks. In my previous day job, I'd keep email up o

I usually run eight desktops on my machine. Most of the time, half of them sit empty until I need to switch tasks. In my previous day job, I'd keep email up on one, a development set for my local machine (editor, logs, browser, etc.), windows for references on another. I leave a full set of window up, positioned exactly the way I want them, and move to a clean desktop to deal with incidental, "could you take a look at X" tasks. Being able to spread out what I'm working on without minimizing or overlapping windows really helps segregate what's going on.