[cloverich]

I recently discovered the working memory component of ADHD and it became somewhat of a transformative moment for me. It helped me realize that clearing my plate was the most important activity I could do on any given day, because it created the space I needed to focus, and reduced the strain I felt in a day. It has taken time but I've now found when I look at tabs (or screenshots or whatever clutter) and think not about what I'll save or lose, but about how much more I will do if I don't have the clutter, I start to see it not as something lost but something gained, and it has helped. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does, and its amazing on those days.

[jasomill]

Agreed, but even more so, to the extent that I try to do this "plate-clearing" early and often, in between tasks over the course of a single day, and somewhat obsessively close both browser tabs and desktop windows.

This doesn't mean that more comprehensive browser (and more general desktop) session management tools couldn't be useful!

As it stands, for long-running tasks that necessarily need to be interrupted, I tend to use task-specific VMs, which is wasteful in cases where no background processing is involved.

For example, it'd be useful to extend browsers' (and certain other applications, including macOS applications by UI convention) save/restore state on application quit/restart features to allow multiple state instances to be saved/restored (while still allowing usefully global state to be shared, unlike, e.g., Firefox profiles).

Now imagine the same thing, but across applications and integrated with the desktop environment as, e.g., named, persistent virtual desktop sets.

[yownie]

I've been dreaming of this exact idea for a decade. Task specific workspaces.