My Electronic Workspace #4

Microsoft, Google, Apple ... are you listening?


Steve, Steve and Larry/Sergey .... heads up

During the day, I end up working with multiple projects ... sometimes >5 ... all open in my computer at the same time ... and in different stages of progress. On one project I might be setting up a web page and using multiple, multi-tabbed (>20 tabs) browser windows, a graphics editor, an HTML editor, an FTP client etc. etc. You get the idea.

At the same time I am monitoring twitter for useful stuff that I need to open/bookmark for later reading or which I may want to "retweet" via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc. to my own friends or followers or followers of my clients Facebook pages.

Then I also need to have some apps open to perform daily updates on web sites/blogs or just capture my thoughts for a new posting on one of several blogs or ideas for a new web site.

Alongside this I might be chatting via Skype or Instant Messenger with potential customers in China or Jordan ... as I was just the other day ... in relation to one or more projects.

Each "open" project has many moving parts and it becomes very difficult to keep track of where everything is for each project. Often they become all mixed up. One multi-tabbed browser window is just not enough for one project let alone several!

If I get a message with a URL through Facebook, Twitter or Instant Messaging that looks interesting ... I click on the link and it opens in the last active browser window .... now you know how things get mixed up. I don't want to spend half my day making sure a browser tab is sitting in a browser window where I can find it again. I could bookmark it (I use Google Bookmarks quite heavily and have many folders) but this is another story that I will write about separately ... bookmarks that is!

I may also want to use one app for multiple projects concurrently ... say a graphics editor. How do I keep things in each project separate? Each set of graphics for my projects tend to be in different folders ... so I have to keep switching work locations  to open or save files within my graphics editor ... as I flip flop between projects during the day.

Now you might want to criticise me for my work practices ... but hey, I want to work the way I want to work

 ... and maybe I don't care if I am not that productive, as long as I am having fun.

What I would like is this:

• To name each "virtual project" that I start work on during the day ... and then
•  as I open something, browser tab, app, file explorer window, etc. ... I get asked to nominate which project it belongs to
• I want to minimise/maximise or park "projects" on my touch screen so I can switch projects ... quickly restore all windows/apps for a project and hide/minimise other projects
• I would appreciate it if I can have the same app open multiple times ... if the application can't have multiple open projects itself

Another time I will write about my need to have multiple (concurrent) identities. Cheers for now though