better Windows desktop window management... for the easily distracted
December 17, 2022 10:27 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for recommendations for apps/utilities (or maybe even alternative window managers?) for Windows 10, or perhaps guidance on practices that will help me more easily and quickly find the window(s) I'm looking for at a moment's notice, without having to wade through (and get distracted by) windows that aren't relevant to the particular task I'm working on (but need to keep open to be ready at a moment's notice)
My job requires Windows 10 else I'd be happily using Stage Manager on a Mac which does a lot of what I'm looking for. At any one time I have a gazillion windows open and often for a given task I need to switch (e.g. alt-tab) between several of them in order to do my work. On top of it, i also need to keep multiple Firefox windows or tabs open. So this means I spend a lot of time just flipping through visual representations of various bits of content to find a particular one. I'm finding as I get older (or maybe the ADD is becoming less successfully managed), my ability to quickly visually distinguish one [group of] window[s] from another has waned. Like... it's harder to scan through a list of items (e.g. a vertical list of Tabs in Firefox; or a horizontal depiction of all the windows open across apps). My work flow seems to require that I usually have a few Outlook window open, and two-three Firefox windows (each with multiple tabs) open at any given time, with a few other applications as well; though it's possible that *some* of those windows don't need to stay open and I'm just a slob about shutting down windows when done with them (which I would find to require a context switch that could distract me out of my workflow). Hmmm.... he more I type I'm starting to wonder if my easy distractability is the bigger problem here, and perhaps there isn't a technical solution for that, but if anyone has had a similar experience and has recommendations for apps, hacks, or approaches, I'd sure appreciate it!
My job requires Windows 10 else I'd be happily using Stage Manager on a Mac which does a lot of what I'm looking for. At any one time I have a gazillion windows open and often for a given task I need to switch (e.g. alt-tab) between several of them in order to do my work. On top of it, i also need to keep multiple Firefox windows or tabs open. So this means I spend a lot of time just flipping through visual representations of various bits of content to find a particular one. I'm finding as I get older (or maybe the ADD is becoming less successfully managed), my ability to quickly visually distinguish one [group of] window[s] from another has waned. Like... it's harder to scan through a list of items (e.g. a vertical list of Tabs in Firefox; or a horizontal depiction of all the windows open across apps). My work flow seems to require that I usually have a few Outlook window open, and two-three Firefox windows (each with multiple tabs) open at any given time, with a few other applications as well; though it's possible that *some* of those windows don't need to stay open and I'm just a slob about shutting down windows when done with them (which I would find to require a context switch that could distract me out of my workflow). Hmmm.... he more I type I'm starting to wonder if my easy distractability is the bigger problem here, and perhaps there isn't a technical solution for that, but if anyone has had a similar experience and has recommendations for apps, hacks, or approaches, I'd sure appreciate it!
Best answer: Do you have the option of getting additional or larger monitors?
Windows Powertoys has "Always on Top" and "FancyZones".
Handling tabs could be addressed at the browser level (e.g.)
Do consider the effect that computers are getting better. Going back 10, 20, 30 (or more years) your typical computer couldn't handle having very many windows/tabs/applications open... and forget about multi tasking... And then your computer would need to be rebooted because it froze on a semi regular basis, so you would regularly lose what had been open anyways.
posted by oceano at 11:17 AM on December 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Windows Powertoys has "Always on Top" and "FancyZones".
Handling tabs could be addressed at the browser level (e.g.)
Do consider the effect that computers are getting better. Going back 10, 20, 30 (or more years) your typical computer couldn't handle having very many windows/tabs/applications open... and forget about multi tasking... And then your computer would need to be rebooted because it froze on a semi regular basis, so you would regularly lose what had been open anyways.
posted by oceano at 11:17 AM on December 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Second power toys (with zones and keeping on top) and multiple desktops. I also move the taskbar to the side of the window, and show whole window titles so I can see more at once. In Chrome, you can right click at the top and rename a window (and then see the name on the task bar). Then you can also select groups of tabs, group then and give them a name.
posted by lookoutbelow at 11:45 AM on December 17, 2022
posted by lookoutbelow at 11:45 AM on December 17, 2022
Does the Win-Tab overview work better for you than alt-tab?
posted by sagc at 11:50 AM on December 17, 2022
posted by sagc at 11:50 AM on December 17, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by flabdablet at 11:14 AM on December 17, 2022