Aaron Swartz offered an interesting insight into this on The Setup [1]
I don't have any extra displays. When I was little, I'd read Adam Engst talk about how great a second monitor was and lust after one, but never could bring myself to buy one. When I went to work for Condé Nast they gave us all nice big external Dell monitors and I found that I just couldn't get in the habit of using two screens. Everyone talks about how great it is to have more screen real estate, but apparently for what I do it doesn't really matter. I spend nearly all of my time on the computer staring at a block of text of one sort or another (emails, web pages, code) and no matter how big my screen is, I can't read more than a couple words at a time. Everything else on the screen is mostly a distraction. But maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't so nearsighted.
I've found working on just my 15" laptop leads to much less procrastination (sometimes).
I also find having lots of stuff open distracting. One screen and virtual desktops so the browser, irc and other crap can be kept off the code view really helps me focus. Colour noise also distracts me, and browsers really are good at throwing a lot of it at you. When I'm coding, my display is effectively monochrome with dark grey terminals and lighter grey text with a warm reddish orange cast.
As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
> As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
That's one of the most amazing things I have heard in a while.
> As far as coding goes, living in a monastery with a laggy internet connection, using a slow netbook with 11" screen was one of my most productive times.
I used to find this really helpful, but with LiveReload it doesn't make much difference. I always swipe back to my browser before the change has been injected, so I'm not saving any time with 2 monitors.
I've a similar zen in moving from a 2-monitor desktop setup to working off my 13" MacBook Air. It's been a huge benefit to my productivity. I make heavy use of Spaces, so when I'm engrossed in a task, it's all I'm doing. I'm also pretty ruthless about closing windows/tabs and quitting apps, so I typically don't have that much stuff running at any given time. My overall stress level day-to-day has gone down significantly, and I attribute a large part of that to the amount of clutter I've removed from my average context of operation.
Interesting. I've always worked from a laptop (first a 13" now a 15"). I got to use a 27" Apple display earlier this year for 1 week. I found it hard to get used to. With a bigger display keeping the light from reflecting off it was more difficult, I had to move the mouse so much further to do things, and I physical had to move my head to view the different areas of the screen (whereas with the laptop I can just move my eyes). Happy to be back with the laptop.
I don't have any extra displays. When I was little, I'd read Adam Engst talk about how great a second monitor was and lust after one, but never could bring myself to buy one. When I went to work for Condé Nast they gave us all nice big external Dell monitors and I found that I just couldn't get in the habit of using two screens. Everyone talks about how great it is to have more screen real estate, but apparently for what I do it doesn't really matter. I spend nearly all of my time on the computer staring at a block of text of one sort or another (emails, web pages, code) and no matter how big my screen is, I can't read more than a couple words at a time. Everything else on the screen is mostly a distraction. But maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't so nearsighted.
I've found working on just my 15" laptop leads to much less procrastination (sometimes).
[1] http://aaron.swartz.usesthis.com/