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Comment by dahdum | Hacker News Reader

I started using 4 virtual desktops to manage distractions many years ago and it’s worked wonderfully for me.

Desktop 1 is for chat, email, Spotify, and general web browsing.

Desktop 2 is for software development only, nowadays VSCode. A separate browser profile is used here and only for development related browsing (docs, stack overflow, live testing).

Desktop 3 is data and system administration. Remote terminals, Excel, database clients, and similar go here.

Desktop 4 is a catch-all. I use it for infrequent activity, like the occasional Photoshop, Word or vendor tooling.

I’ve used this same setup on Windows, OSX, and Linux for 15+ years. I always setup Alt-1,2,3,4 to switch and tweak the OS to remove all animations so it switches instantly.

I’ve found it much easier to stay in the zone this way.

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How do you remove the desktop-switching animation on macOS? I'd like to use the virtual desktops feature but the animation is unbearably slow, and I was unable to find a way to disable it online even after extensive searching.

Afaik "just use Linux" still isn't an option on my 2019 (Intel) MBP due to lack of support for basic stuff like Wi-Fi and keyboard :(

System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > enable "Reduce motion"

Though I think this reduces motion on everything, not just the virtual desktop animations. I don't mind that but YMMV.

Omg, THANKS!

Wow. Thank you so much too!

It’s been a while since I set OSX up but there are Super User threads about it. I end up searching each time for the latest methods because I haven’t been able to get it quite as instant as Win/Linux but close enough.

https://superuser.com/questions/35144/speed-up-osx-spaces-by...

I have the animations off entirely, be warned though, it requires disabling SIP which is a non starter for many corporate environments.

If you install yabai[0] with its scripting addition, you can configure hotkeys to change spaces with no animations. It's pretty powerful, and I have specific keybinds[1] to do things such as transition to a space with a specific application running.

[0]: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai

[1]: https://github.com/worm-emoji/dotfiles/blob/140c9fd614ebfc54...

If you really want to run linux, get a Lenovo Thinkpad. They actually test the hardware with linux distros and even have bios options for Linux sleep states, labeled as such. Give the Macbook to someone who wants to run MacOS. The X1 Carbon line is my favorite, with excellent battery life for basic coding and video watching. Also, power options to set the maximum charge to 80% to preserve the life of the battery. (lithium ion batteries last nearly forever if you keep the charge between 20% and 80%) And yes, it has so much battery to spare that that middle 60% is enough to last a day of coding.

There is an app for this. Reduce motion is still slow fade animation. The app was a little buggy but mostly worked like Linux tiling window managers.

The apps price was a few bucks. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’m looking an will edit if I find it.

Edit: no dice. All I can do is assure you it’s technically possible and some external WM apps out there may do it for you

Can’t you just do the 3 finger side swipe to move between desktops?

I don't know how anyone lives without this. I have six desktops on my MBP with a similar organization:

1. Communication apps

2. Project management, todo lists

3+. Data science and work tools - RStudio, Excel, etc

There is a left-to-right flow: communication influences project roadmaps and to-do lists, which influence what actually gets done. You hang out on the right unless you need info from the left.

Thanks for explaining the reasoning of the left to right ordering, makes total sense! Will try this setup on Monday :-)

Yeah, I think for multiple desktops the key is a stable organization. Otherwise there's a lot of frustration because much of what you're doing is not on your current desktop and you're going to be hunting for it, and where is it this time?

The left-to-right principle also helps with the organization of the work desktops, which is more fluid and project-dependent.

Do you tile your windows as well, or just keep one-ish app in each desktop? I.e. do you switch between desktops and windows all the time, or only between desktops usually?

I don't really tile but it might be mostly because of lack of imagination. Sometimes I manually tile two windows side by side, like if I'm scrolling through something and taking notes on it on the side.

RStudio is tiled by design, and that is super helpful.

Super interesting! I've had pretty much the exact same division of virtual desktops for many, many years. Small variation in what is on the desktops, but it's more like, 40 years old editor instead of VSCode and Jupyter notebooks instead of Excel. The intent of the distinct desktops is very, very similar.

Funny, this is exactly to the point how I have it. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to remove animations on OSX, but works well regardless.

How do you prevent ⌘+Tab from automatically jumping you between desktops? At that point, the desktops feel like impediments, not boundaries.

There is some software to have a windows-like alt-tab experience, and you can decide to filter to current desktop or not

What is this miracle software?

Some of the alternatives I've tried https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://noteifyapp.com/command-tab-plus/ https://contexts.co/ https://manytricks.com/witch/

Also rcmd https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/

https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

Thank you all with the suggestions!

It's possible to disable that, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4995042

Me too, more or less!

Workspace 1: main project, development #2: secondary project, if any #3,4: wildcards, depending on what I need #5: VM management #6: remote screen sessions, admin stuff #7: music #8: email, communications

FireFox browser profile for main work stuff has redirects to keep me off of reddit, etc.

Multi-desktop-crew unite (:

How often do you use “do not disturb” or some similar mechanism to disable notifications?

Desktops, monitors, or any amount of tech doesn't solve the organizational problem of constantly interrupting employees with excessive distractions.

I've had this exact setup for nearly a decade. Sometimes Slack (or Google Chat) ends up on desktop four.

It really cuts down on distractions.

It’s cool to see others have ended up with similar setups. Desktop four started as either a vm or vnc/rdp client for software that wouldn’t run locally. So that’s why it remains as the catch-all.

For me it housed mocp (later Spotify) and a GUI file manager on occasion. It's nice to leave the first three desktops clean.

Similar here. I’ve blocked all distractions in ublock on my dev and general browsers.

Stage manager actually helps a lot

How do you manage virtual desktops on windows? I used to but found it annoying to maintain which windows go where, when restarting would always reset the settings

Win10+ has virtual desktops built in, before that I used the SysInternals Desktops utility.

To get Alt-1,2,3,4 working I use AutoHotKey. I can’t recall which script I use (been ages since I changed it) but it works like this one with some edits for keys.

https://github.com/pmb6tz/windows-desktop-switcher

For windows I definitely recommend also installing PowerToys. You can set up different snap grids for each desktop. Keeps things tidy with no overlapping windows.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

Yeah I used to use W10's virtual desktops; I got tired of having to reconfigure the desktops every time I rebooted the laptop. Big fan of powertoys, although I keep forgetting all the tools it has to utilize though xP

I'll hafta see if they've updated it, and look into fancy zones. They look like the tiling manager I've always wanted in windows

https://dexpot.de/?lang=en is really good.

It has hotkey support and pretty much everything you can ask for to quickly manage and switch between desktops and toggle common window attributes like "always on top".

This is an interesting take. What type of virtual desktop do you use?

macOS has it built in, as does windows. There’s a mention of yabai upthread which takes it to the next level.

This is pretty good advice. But if you are going to hide the slack desktop while you are working then you should let people know. Otherwise, people will expect a response real time and wonder why you are ignoring them. It's human nature.

If you always respond instantly you set that expectation for the future. I wouldn’t be expected to respond immediately if I were presenting over Zoom, had just left for a bathroom/drink break, on an important call, or was in the middle of an careful process anyway.

It’s not as if I ignore it completely, I can check Desktop 1 for flashing notifications with a simple left hand only Alt-1, and be back on my working desktop in like a second. That quickly becomes as autonomic as Ctrl-l, n, e, Enter when I’m in a browser.

Really depends. At our company there's no expectation that you'll answer Slack messages in real time.

IMHO expecting synchronous behaviour from asynchronous tools is flawed way to operate; I'd be very comfortable taking a stand against manning these communication channels at all times.

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