For a long time I was programming on a 1280x1024 ThinkPad laptop. Looking back that seems crazy.. totally insane.. I could see pixels. Why didn't I invest in the main tool I use to make money? Why not make myself more productive? What a cheapskate..
For the last year or so I had been using a 1080 monitor which was much-much better. I could still only fit a single window on the screen at a time, but using my amazing workspace grid this didn't seem to be a problem.
Until a few weeks ago when I got a 4k screen. And I didn't get it because I thought I needed it. Just that my new laptop didn't support the FullHD monitor we had in the office so a new screen was in order anyway. Oh boy, was I missing out.
Today I can have all the main 3 windows on the screen at the same time.
So I have everything I need visible at the same time. I don't have to think about which workspace I want to go to (normal people alt-tab which is much worse). I have free brain power to think about the problem at hand. Or if there's an error I can see it arise in the terminal or browser just by looking at the screen - no "oh shit, maybe the error is in the console" moments.
An unexpected benefit is that now I can use my workspace grid to organize my mind. Before I needed 3 workspaces (out of 9) just to program. Now the programming task is in a single workspace. When I take a break I use another workspace. When I want to configure something in my linux (which takes a lot of new Google tabs, multiple terminals and maybe another code editor) I have a separate space for that. All the different chat programs now also have a single space.
Feels like a huge mind declutterer! If I'd known - I would have invested a long time ago. Good monitors arent cheap though. My Dell UltraSharp cost 900€. Wasn't expecting to spend that much, my laptop we got for 600€!! haha. Well. I'm sure in time the price will come down.