Why I Use Only One Monitor

So, for the last couple of years, I've gone from using an ultra wide monitor with a secondary monitor alongside it to regular dual monitor setups. And after trying a bunch of these different options, I finally ended up at the simplest, which is just using a single monitor screen. Sometimes I found that when I try to go through all the different more complicated approaches, often times I end up back at the simplest. As a Mac OS user for the last 2 years, I've only been using a single 27-in Apple Studio Display. I found this to be the most comfortable to work on my projects and write code. Before I continue, I do want to note that this is what has worked for me personally. It might change for me in the future, and it might not apply to you and your specific circumstances. This is just my personal experience. So, at first, I thought that having the most screen real estate as possible was the best way to go. This way, I thought that I could see everything that I needed at the same time. That's why I tried the ultra wide screen and the dual monitor setups. And though it did allow me to have more things open at the same time, I generally found it really uncomfortable, and it never felt very ergonomic. Most of the time, I would have a primary screen in front of me and a secondary screen to my right. I would mostly write code on the primary screen and have any secondary information that I needed, like documentation or the actual web app I was building, on my right. Over time, I started to experience some neck pain from having to move my neck around between the primary screen and the secondary one. The only way I could fix this was to have only one screen in front of me, and so I had to find a suitable replacement for the screen that I had on the side, a virtual way of doing this so I could quickly switch between apps and workspaces with something like my keyboard. Tiling window managers and keyboard shortcuts were the perfect solution. Before I continue, I also want to let you guys know that I'm currently working on a course platform that I'm building from scratch. I'm going to be calling it Terminal Hackers. The plan is to build a place for people who like to hack, code, and build on the terminal like me. I wanted a place where I can dive deeper into the topics that I cover on this channel, make it easy for you to track your progress, and so that it's a lot easier for me to keep everything up to date as well. The first course I'm going to be putting together is a complete beginner's guide on how to set up Neovim from scratch, so you can learn how to build your own custom, personalized, and fully featured IDE. If you want to stay up to date with me, my progress building this platform and putting the course together, and know exactly when the Neovim course gets released, you can sign up for the waitlist and newsletter, linked in the description. Using tiling window managers and keyboard shortcuts made it really easy for me to switch between different workspaces with different apps and layouts. Now, instead of having to move my neck around to look at a different application in a secondary monitor, for example, I would just press on a combination of keystrokes. It would produce the same result and be almost as fast. On Mac OS specifically though, over time, I did find tiling window managers to be a bit clunky and awkward. I've heard they're a lot better in Linux. As a Mac OS user, I ended up with a very simple solution that I've talked about before. It specifically boils down to using something like Raycast to set up keyboard shortcuts for switching between different applications. For example, let's say that I'm coding in Neovim and tmux on the terminal. Then let's say I have the web app I'm building on a browser window, and I'm listening to music on Spotify. Then in my current setup, I can do hyper T to open my terminal window, hyper B to switch to the browser, hyper tab to switch between different browser windows, and hyper M to switch to my Spotify music player. You can set up a hyper key really easily with a Raycast. If you don't know what a hyper key is, it essentially is a key that you assign to all four modifiers, control, shift, option, and command, so that when you use this key to set up keyboard shortcuts, it won't create any conflicts with any other shortcuts you may have. If you have Raycast installed, you can open it up and then do command plus comma, then under advanced, you can reassign one of your keyboard keys to be hyper. Then under extensions, under apps, you can look for a specific application, let's say Chrome browser, for example, and then set up a hotkey for it. More recently, I've also found it to be really useful to install browser applications onto your computer. You can do this with Chrome or Safari. Let's say you use YouTube or GitHub a lot. Often times, you can install this web app as an app to your computer, and then you can look for it in your Raycast settings like we did before, assign a hotkey for it, and then you can instantly open or switch to the specific web app with just a couple of keystrokes. Lately, this has really become my favorite way to work. It has eliminated the neck pain I would get from looking at different monitor screens, and I found it to be much more comfortable. As a nice bonus, this approach also helps keep me concentrated. I'm mostly looking at only one application at a time, so I feel less distracted. And if I ever need to, with Raycast, you can also set up window management, so that with other keyboard shortcuts, you can move windows around your screen. I typically move a window to the left and another to the right if I ever want to look at two different things at the same time. Now, this is my personal solution to the issue as a Mac OS user. I honestly wish Mac OS had better tiling window managers. I haven't tried yabai or Aero Space in quite some time now. I'm planning on giving Linux and its tiling window managers a try very soon. I recently started setting up Ubuntu on my MacBook through Parallels as a virtual machine, so I can start playing around with this and give it a try. I know I'm probably going to love it, and eventually down the road, I do want to set up a dedicated Linux computer. I'm hoping I can put a video together on my experience with this very soon. So, make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit on that bell icon so you can get notified and see any future videos about this. Now, finally, this approach has also helped me keep my desk minimal and less cluttered. I can keep my MacBook in clamshell mode, so it takes up less space on my desk, and I only have the single monitor in front of me, nothing else. I really like how this makes my desk feel, and I've also found that this workflow has made it easier for me to work on the go if I only have my laptop screen. Before, it was quite a bit harder for me as I was pretty dependent on the multiple monitor screens that I was using on my desk. So, to recap, I only use a single monitor screen now because I found it to be more comfortable and ergonomic. I can use tiling window managers, Raycast, and/or keyboard shortcuts to quickly and easily switch between apps and workspaces. Beyond that, having only one screen helps keep me concentrated and less distracted, and I can also keep my desk minimal and with less clutter. All right, you guys. So, that's it for this video. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. If you did, don't forget to leave a like down below. Let me know in the comment section if you have any questions or feedback for me, and don't forget to subscribe to the channel to see more content like this from me. See you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]

🚀 TerminalHackers & Neovim Course Waitlist: https://bit.ly/43wZ5h0 ⌨️ Build Your Own Corne v4.1 Keyboard: https://splittype.com/ 🖥️ Apple Studio Display: https://amzn.to/4hCma7X In this video, I explain why I just use one monitor as a software developer. I've gone through quite a few different setups & I've found that using only one monitor screen has been the most comfortable, ergonomic & productive for me, especially with the help of keyboard shortcuts. Hope you enjoy the video! 💻 My dotfiles: https://bit.ly/4cFlPyq ⌨️ Corne v4 Keyboard 🎥 Watch the full guide: https://youtu.be/j41G25VORmI 🚀 Build Your Own Corne v4.1 Keyboard: https://splittype.com/ 🔨 Use the 3D Keyboard Builder: https://bit.ly/4i4MnvP Palm rests I use: https://amzn.to/4eYRFpD 🔗 Helpful links: Raycast: https://www.raycast.com/ ⏰ Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction 00:49 - Comfort & Ergonomics 01:53 - Neovim Course Announcement 02:39 - Keyboard Workflow 04:20 - Browser Apps 06:01 - Clutter & Minimalism 06:31 - Recap & Conclusion