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by JohnBooty 1200 days ago
That's so interesting. I'm the opposite, but I've worked with plenty of people who work like you do. Both styles are pretty common.

    My overall mantra at work is that I can 
    only do one thing a a time if I want to do it well
I'm curious. What about tasks that are "one thing" but may involve >1 windows/apps? For example, referring to documentation while looking at code? Or tweaking CSS/markup while observing the resulting changes in the browser? (If you do that sort of work)
1 comments

Yeah, I've had 3 monitors forever, and for a while I tried 4 [1].

I do webinars where obviously one monitor is displayed. I find it clumsy - switching between the code, the program, log, browser, docs and so on.

In general work I focus on one task, but I find that many programs are involved at one time. Docs on one, code on another, program on a third and so on.

I also have a need for email to be open, along with Skype etc. Those get hidden often though, hence my need for the 4th.

[1] my experiment with 4 failed because the horizontal spread was too far, and it was tiresome to swivel to the 4th.i considered putting the 4th above the 3, but felt that too might be "out of eyeline". So for now I'm maxed on 3.

I had three for a while but at some point the clutter and complexity overwhelmed the productivity

   i considered putting the 4th above the 3
"Out of eyeline" monitors can work for me, but only if they're for things I look at very infrequently. Like for example my music player.