Working without distraction : my minimalist Macintosh experience | Hacker News Reader

Working without distraction : my minimalist Macintosh experience

wedontneedroads.net

25 pointsatestu19 comments

I wonder how something as utilitarian as a volume control or battery status icon could disturb or distract someone. Sure for a minimal aesthetic it could be considered superfluous, but a distraction? Seems a bit neurotic to me.

It's something for the eye to focus on and the mind to be aware of, something to think about, remember, and compare to previous memories, to examine for changes. Imagine how distracting the shell would be if every command finished with a bell and 'Command completed!', or if there were a menu bar listing every possible command (or even just a subset), or if your room was wallpapered in lorem ipsum. Unless the volume actually changes, or you specifically want to mess with it, it being there at all is an issue.

Not sure I follow — are you suggesting it's distracting at a subconscious level?

I find it a stretch to say any of the examples you mention are analogous to small static monotone icons in the corner of a screen; they no more distract me than the 'Eject' key on the keyboard does.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13038258/Auditory-visual-and-physi...

I agree. I get rid of that stuff, but only to conserve screen real estate.

I didn't really agree with the article. I saw his experience, but to me it doesn't look that minimal - just his way of doing things. His way of doing things works for him. Is using a site that just shows the youtube video in question minimal? Would using darkroom instead of textmate be more minimal? Would using a 386 instead of a Mac be more minimal? Would using vi be more minimal?

I'm not having a pop at the guy, he's made a choice and it works for him. From where I sit (typing this on Vista/Firefox but also using Arch/Awesome elsewhere) it seems some of his choices (to me at least) seem a bit more ocd than minimal.

But I'm glad he has something that works for him and it's always good to see other people's setups.

Agree with some of the posters on here - some people take things to extremes.

However the article was well worth the read for the mention of jumpcut http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/. I've been after something like this for ages.

Interesting how some of his daily reading is moving off laptop and too his iphone. This is something I am beginning to find myself doing more and more as well.

About the only really useful hint here is to turn off notifications. I tried out Growl when I first got my mini, but after a few weeks I realized it was adversly effecting my productivity, bouncing between email, IRC and IMs almost constantly.

Minimalist screens, docks, etc. are a matter of taste but I don't seen any real productivity improvements.

"I tried out Growl when I first got my mini, but after a few weeks I realized it was adversly effecting my productivity, bouncing between email, IRC and IMs almost constantly."

That's exactly what I expected too, and while I certainly turn it off when deep in the zone, I found there's a certain sweet spot where growl actually minimises distractions because you're vaguely aware of what new message/mail/etc just turned up, but don't need to toggle applications to see if it's worth paying attention to.

I found there's a certain sweet spot where growl actually minimises distractions because you're vaguely aware of what new message/mail/etc just turned up, but don't need to toggle applications to see if it's worth paying attention to.

Agree. I find Facebook notifications, for instance, to be in this sweet spot for me. Lessens the likelihood that I'll actually visit the site.

It's funny that some dude apparently getting all serious about minimalism must still have an image plastered across his desktop.

A "wallpaper" isn't essential to using a computer, folks.

Changing your wallpaper to some solid color isn’t minimalism.

In the context of the article, why not?

You implied that somebody “all serious” about minimalism should only use solid color wallpapers. Anybody else apparently doesn’t have the street cred or something.

He already uses a very toned down wallpaper (mentions that, too) and I honestly don’t get why in that context your snide comment was necessary.

Quote : "I almost never need more than one window to focus on."

That's not suitable for most of the programming work.

Erm, most IDEs let you split windows and most have integrated help browsers.

I use Emacs for C and Lisp coding and with both, all I really need is that one Emacs window :S

Agreed, I recently installed isolator for the mac. I love it when it's on, but a lot of the time I need to switch between two or more windows. My IDE and reference document and browser; Word and Excel.

I've found it's really great for braindump type tasks where I need to write or code something quickly.

Hi,

I'm the author of that article.

I'm studying Computer Science Engineering in Paris and also working at Netvibes.com as web developer.

I can assure you I just need one TextMate window most of the time, for web or system development.

Pretty sure everybody has a different use of virtual space and windows arrangement, I juste wanted to share some tips that worked very well for me.

I use dwm and experience the same benefits. One great advantage is that it's absolutely free.

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