Lately I’ve been re-reading a great book called “The Power of Less”. It’s all about finding the essential and setting limitations.
With those concepts working in my mind, I did a major clean-up of my workspace and only left the essentials visible. Before I used to have 4 computer monitors, which I had reduced down to 2 (laptop, principle monitor) in the past year. I’ve taken it one step further, I’m not back to one monitor, but a 24″ at 1920×1200 resolution. In the future, I’d like to get a 27″ or 30″ monitor but always keep it to just the one.
By keeping it to one, you’re encouraged to keep the windows that you need for the task at hand without being distracted by a whole bunch of other stuff which is possible when you have several monitors and several apps open at the same time.
I’m also applying the “MAC” concept to my PC life, in respect to not maximizing all my program windows. Only expanding them to the size I actually need. When I started doing this I noticed the importance of a good clean, clear virtual desktop and background. I found a great site with very well designed desktops.
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/downloads/date/any/
Besides my monitor, I have a keyboard (want to go wireless with that as soon as possible), wireless mouse, phone, and my glass of water. Everything else is clear.
In my work everything is done on the computer, so there is no need for files, or papers, and if I did need that I would probably get one of those paper scanners so all those paper documents became virtual and archived.
I’m a huge fan of limiting to the essentials, and I feel this is a good step in the right direction. At a certain point in my life I was caught up in quantity of work, items, etc… now it’s all about finding the absolute essentials and constantly refining.
