alt Hacker NewsI've found mostly the opposite. Some well arranged windows are quite a nice anchor, I'm working on what's there in front of me. It's like bowling with bumpers in place, instead of the ball going in the gutter, the structure keeps it in the lane. I've found it necessary to devote time to cleaning and clearing windows, and sometimes I forget what's going on, and as I'm closing out the windows because I forgot what was going on, oh! there's this half finished thing that I actually really want finished.
What am I working on, what's in progress? The work space is the map. The terrain is changing as the task progresses, and so must the map, but the map is useful, even if it takes a bit of redrawing here and there.
The desktops (multiple, 3-7) are the map of the work. Part of the work is keeping the map accurate, not wadding it up and throwing it in the trash.
I suppose different things work for different people, but I started with the suggestion here and came around to skillful use of space as the work map itself.
Cleaning and updating are continuous, not a 'big bang' clear-the-desks event, mostly. But if it's not continuous, the big bang is probably better.
Some spots are problem spots, like digital notebooks, desktop icons. When I notice a problem spot, I create a recurring task to remove one X per week, or in some of the worst cases, one X per day. I have a rule of clearing out the oldest two days of email each day. I miss some days if I'm busy, but on average rate out = rate in, because I will always catch up within a day or two applying the rule that the oldest two days of email need eviction (make a task out of it, archive it, whatever) every day. Rate out = rate in
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I understand why people organize things around them, also on their computer. While I am working I also do it. On Gnome I have 1-2 desktops per tasks when working on multiple things. As you say say, they are "the map of the work", nice metaphor. But, jumping in the next morning I get sort of overwhelmed, especially with multiple tasks ongoing.
Over time I have come to the ritual of closing everything in the evening (end of afternoon really), what is still running is on servers in Tmux labeled with the task number, sometimes I leave Readme's open with instructions to myself (vscode or obsidian), but starting clean works better for me (like OP). I sort of slowly load the context in the morning and start to ramp up. That is what it feels like. It works for me. When I boot up, I have 5 empty desktops and zero tabs open in the browser. But it is all filled up relatively quickly again. I do have rituals/rules, like secondary, longer running tasks (ie long running data analysis workflows) are usually on desktop 4. Element/Slack/Signal on desktop 5, outlook/teams (for current client) + other side stuff in browser on desktop 1. Desktop 2 is very dynamic, usually where I spend most time, it overflows onto desktop 3 when I need more space, both are filled with terminals, vscode, browser windows. I have my laptop screen on the side, but for some reason never use it... I just use my Iiyama ultra-wide with quarter tiling (probably would tile more if Gnome would support it, KDE did, loved that, but love the simplicity of Gnome more).
I'm considering making 6 desktops haha. Oh, I really can't work with dynamic desktops, as I "need" some stuff to be on the final desktop, far away yet easy to reach.
Current client has an Excel file for tasks. Really hate that. Tried pushing her to MS Tasks, didn't really work well. But I also need a large space for context and subtasks. For some data analysis tasks I made a small Django system, with a page (model/view) per dataset. That works very well for us, it was very much worth the effort to set that up. The view grabs in data from several locations so it also helps me quickly look things up.
I think it's where one plugs the external world into in their brain. For my daily work, I plug the desktop to my current thought stream (or short term memory?). Anything not immediately relevant to what I'm thinking about is an unnecessary speed bump or stutter in my speech, which means minimal window decoration, no status bars, ... and anything not visible can be summoned by a quick single "label" somehow, not by navigating a structure. This is more similar to what the author suggested.
{And if I'm getting what you said correctly} What you described, is similar to how I organize my drawers in my room. Everything is visible at once, but navigating them usually takes 2 or 3 steps. Without this visual map I'm completely lost.