My interest in programs to write in on the computer is a small hobby and interest.
Then I ran across this photo, a nice little Mac Color Classic, and then find out the guy is running it as a writing station.
When I used to write on my Mac Plus (first Mac), you didn’t run a lot of programs all at once, so yeah, I could understand his point: devote a machine that’s less likely to distract you.
On my computer at work, I may have 10-30 windows open or minimized at any one time, and sometimes finding the focus to write is difficult for reasons beyond so many windows (constant stream of e-mails, iChats, etc.).
At home, it’s almost worse: I have web surfing windows, work windows, windows for various projects I’m engaged in, and e-mails for all sorts of responsibilities I have. In addition, I use iTunes a lot, and yet it seems I’m not terribly efficient at anything.
I’m thinking of buying a bigger screen, but maybe what I need is more focus. I won’t be buying a vintage Mac to get that focus, but… there’s a variety of ways to find focus.
I found this guy’s Mac Color Classic via this website, that extols clean, and simple Mac living. There’s a recipe behind almost every photo or screenshot.
- a lack of visual clutter;
- the sense that your work becomes the focus;
- you don’t have to have 15 programs running at once to get work done,
- there’s an obsessive behavior to rid your menubar of its little icons.
The icons don’t bother me, but the resistance to multitask and wherewithal to focus are bothersome pursuits. For writing, I’ve tried a number of full-screen editors. I like Ulysses and I bought (and really used) Scrivener. But what about focus for other applications?
Does every program need to take full screen control just to write, or get an idea down?
I think the full-screen writing applications are good for hard-core writing. But most tasks (like writing this blog post in MarsEdit) don’t need a full-screen experience (for one, the screen is too big). What would be nice is a shuffling of all the windows (Spaces, or using the minimize widget) to only leave one for focus, and a clean, simple desktop.
That’ll be this week’s project.