How do you guys work on your computers?

I mostly use several xterm windows at once. I have i3-wm with my own custom status line (which displays temperature, date/time, system load, memory usage, and number of email messages in /var/mail), and have a key combination to open a new xterm window. Then, most things are done by command-line. I use Vim for text editing. I often use curl when wanting to download files (rather than using the download manager in the web browser). I do not always have a web browser open (and when I do, the browser tabs can vary). One thing I do often have open, in addition to command shells, is IRC.

Six virtual desktops. Some allocated, but most not: a general purpose web browser (firefox or chrome) in virtual desktop 1, a dedicated-to-email different browser (brave) in virtual desktop 6.

Then lots and lots of xterms. xterms are my 'bread and butter' utilities.

I might allocate 3 or 4 xterms to a single development job, for instance: one each for: results of last compile; one for reference to man pages; one for actually text-editing the source code; and maybe one for referring to a header or other source file. (And sometimes one more for testing how an installed version of the program behaves.)

Good q. Over here my setup is centered around a customized Geany(.org) session. I use a bunch of snippets [0] and custom color schemes, with a bunch of Markdown files open, using the Commander plugin to switch between them, and FSearch (configured with a specific folder/file type) to open more. These functions are bound to various shortcuts.

Ctrl-Super-T/Y/U to open yesTerday's, todaY's, and tomorro...U's log/journal. Next day's template is added YYYY-MM-DD.md every morning at like 4 a.m. via cron and synced to devices. These templates have a long-form method meant to walk right through and fix everything that could be wrong with my life, and a short-form method meant to quickly establish clarity.

I try to do as much work in-(mental)-house as possible, e.g. I stay in my journal until I have all the momentum I need for any given work task that's more external--web browsing, document editing, coding, etc. I find this pretty relaxing and an easy way to build up energy.

I am a contrarian with traditional productivity and try to waste as much time as possible, intentionally, to build opposite-energy for work (Jungian oriented). I listen to loud and vibrant music (not all the time), I talk to myself when I can, I bitch about everything I don't wanna do. I watch movies and often have a VLC video wall open, with each VLC running a playlist of 200+ randomly-shuffled videos (m3u I want to say?). They're mostly muted and my goal is to find a film or TV show that reflects my current energy so I can front-door it into intuitive connection with archetype to solve problems in the current mental context (Jungian stuff again).

My desktop layout is 2x screens and 4-8 virtual workspaces, using Sup-H/L to move around and Ctrl-Sup-H/L to bring the current window with me.

I have a key bound to shuffle desktop backgrounds (XFCE) and a timed shuffle of 10m or so because I find that the variety is good for a little bit of mental energy.

I have a shortcut bound to John Denver yodelling, because I made a mistake once, pressed the wrong keys and nothing happened to warn me of the mistake. Now it gets me every damn time.

If I start to detect overwork (I'm REALLY good at overworking myself, so the above is informed by all of the associated years of depression & anxiety from workaholism decades ago) I'll go lay down somewhere. I use a laptop on a bed-desk thing with articulated legs. It supports a chilled-out nervous system way better than sitting.

Browser stuff is not particularly interesting and still a WIP. I have browser windows in specific positions for specific types of activity, like monitoring or idle browsing or various work projects. I also have a lot of keyboard shortcuts for various browser things. I wrote one called Jessy's Film Store which makes up a bunch of fake genres and then opens a Youtube search for those in each tab, like:

a German pirate film from 1989

(I found some fun stuff this way, never what I thought I'd find)

My XFCE panel has a bunch of genmon applets that light up and keep me informed about various things like when a service I care about has found an issue.

For terminal, guake with tmux...

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo