Coronavirus has robbed me of one of my favorite productivity hacks, which is coding on old Thinkpad with 4:3 ratio display, at a coffeeshop or library with Internet turned off. No distractions, no multitasking, just pure focus on a problem.

I miss it.

IMHO, two monitors is an amazing upgrade. One screen for code, another for reference material or for the app being debugged. Better than one huge screen in many cases, as it’s two 16:10 spaces that you can maximize things to.

But with a 3rd monitor, you’re well into diminishing returns, it may even end up being a distraction if it becomes a Slack/Mail/web screen.

> I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen)

I'm currently using two external monitors, with my laptop docked and closed. I find the "dedicated screen for <distraction>" was a problem for me when I had my laptop screen open, because it's a different size/resolution/position than my actual monitors. On the other hand, I never have that problem with my dedicated monitors - in my mind they're a part of the same "workspace" because they're the same size, resolution, and positioned together - so I could see myself going to 3 desktop monitors one day.

I have two monitors right now and wish I had a third. One for code, one for documentation, and one for running whatever I'm working on (website, android emulator, etc). Currently I have the code monitor vertical and swap between workspaces on the horizontal monitor for the running thing and documentation.

I've solved this problem by having my email client (actually it's Slack in my case, but the same principle) and terminal share a screen. This works pretty well because I rarely want to use my terminal and chat at the same time.

When I need to concentrate I just turn off my two side ones and focus on the middle one.