For the last few weeks I have been working without the clock in my menu bar and it has been awesome. By taking something away you realise how often you pay attention to it, and as a clock changes every minute I was paying a lot of attention! Time is a very useful thing but being reminded of it so much is unneccessary. If I need to be somewhere at a certain time, my phone will beep with a calendar alert!
Working without a clock has been great because I can lose track of time and get into the flow of whatever I am working on. If I feel like I need a break, I have a break. If I’m hungry, I go eat. If everything is good though I’ll keep working through and it has been much more productive.
Taking this one step further though I follow Amit’s tips on how to remove everything else from the menu bar. Right now I have the spotlight search (because I use this heaps) and the airport wifi so I can see what’s happening with the wifi (I move around a lot). The battery display is also hidden – I can always check using the buttons on the left side of the laptop anyway, and it will pop up an alert when I pass the 20% charge mark.
If you are interested in focus I would suggest trying this minimal menu bar sometime :)
By Ross Hill - November 30th, 2009 at 5:58pm with 923 views - amit gupta
