I’m a big fan of having a very clean desktop, as a part of The Cave, which is an idea I picked up from Rands.

Author Safely Ensconced in Cave

A part of having a good workspace, for me, is having a very clean desktop. I run everything as lightly as I can get it because the goal — the thing that brings about  good work, is to establish a place where everything drifts away but the project that you’re on. For me that means putting away IRC, instant messaging, Twitter and email for most of the day and just allowing for one or two really basic windows that I can use. Otherwise, an 8-hour workday can easily produce less than fifteen minutes of actual progress while still feeling exhausting.

Not everybody runs Linux on the desktop, of course, but those of us who do often enjoy a good tight terminal setup. For me, aterm fits the bill quite nicely. Running on a dark, single-color background with the following options produces very nice results:

/usr/bin/aterm -bg black -fg white +tr +trsb -fade 60 -bl +sb -font font1

What do other people do to enhance their productivity on the desktop? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.