How To Be Productive Using Spaces on the Mac

With the Leopard release, the Mac acquired a capability called Spaces; the ability to run and manage multiple desktops. Prior to that I was using a similar capability through a freeware program called Desktop Manager. There was an alternative called Virtue Desktops, but I preferred Desktop Manger. Spaces is better than both.

The important point, with multiple desktops, is that screen space is at a premium and more screen space delivers better productivity.  Spaces gives you 16 different screens and the capability to have an application associated with one of the 16 screens, or to float, so that appears on every screen that you move too.

It’s taken me a while to get the hang of Spaces in terms of being productive, but believe me, once you get the hang of it, it makes a big difference. Here are the simple steps to making it work:

1. You can have a maximum of 16 Spaces. Configure all 16. Why? The truth is you’ll find a use for them all in time and you effectively multiply your screen in size by a factor of 16.
2. Assign a “mouse key”, i.e. a mouse function to allow you to show all 16 Spaces (as per the image below) and click on the required one to change Spaces. This is sometimes the fastest way to move between the 16 Spaces and being fast makes a difference.
3. Another swift way to switch between Spaces is to switch to an application that is linked to a specific space. You can to this via Command-Tab or via a launcher.
4. Assign applications to each of the screens. Also assign some applications to appear on every screen i.e. to float. I’ll explain which should be which below. The files and folders on the desktop also float between Spaces. This makes the use of the desktop as a desktop more important. See my posting on this for more information.
5. Remember the reason for the Spaces you’ve created so that you don’t have to think in order to navigate between them. Learn which Spaces are for which activities. Don’t violate the scheme you end up with. Getting it working quickly is a good idea.

The image above shows the sixteen spaces on my Mac Desk Pro with 15 Spaces in use. You’d need about 10 gigs of memory to have all 16 in use and functioning without performance issues, but that doesn’t matter because you’d rarely if ever be multitasking on 16 different things. I normally have about 5 or 6 Spaces in use, but which Spaces are in use varies according to what I’m doing.

Let me first explain what each of these Spaces is for, one by one:

1. Monitoring. This Space is for monitoring the Mac. Activity Monitor is always running here as is 1password, my password encrypter. Also System Preferences runs here and the VoIP phone for Skype runs here when it’s turned on. I run Onyx here to tune up the Mac.
2. Mail. This is the Mail Space. I deal with incoming Mail here and I sometimes drag Journler over to this Space to drop mail into it that I want to archive. iCal lives here as does the Address book.
3. Journler. This is the Journler Space. I tend to run the browser (Firefox here) because I sometimes drop web pages into Journler. But I let the browser float because it is often needed in other spaces. It’s more productive to let it float between Spaces.
4. iTunes. iTunes lives in this space.
5. Wordprocessing. I have both Pages and Microsoft Word. I use both in this space. Word is only there for compatibility, because I prefer Pages. Note that dragging diagrams into Pages works a charm. So when I create diagrams I just drop them t the desktop then go to this Space and drg them into Pages.
6. Diagrams. I use Omnigraffle for diagrams, but I also have Eazydraw. They both live in this Space.
7. Presentations. I use Powerpoint or Keynote. They both live here.
8. Spreadsheets and Graphs. Excel, Numbers and Chartsmith live in this space.
9. Web Site Access and Development. Here I run BBEdit and Transmit. I access this blog site through this Space.
10. Web Page Design. Here I run CSSEdit when doing quick look and feel changes to the blog site.
11. Web Development. This is where Dreamweaver and Flash live.
12. Windows. This is where I run Parallels when I need to use Windows. I have 3 applications that use Windows.
13. Photo Library. This is where I run Aperture.
14. Photoshop. Space 14 is the Photoshop Space.
15. Other Image Work. Other image applications like Art Text, Comic Life and Corel Painter live here.
16. Poser. Poser is a photosynthetic modeling capability that I sometimes mess with. It has a space to itself and needs one.

Not so difficult to fill 16 Spaces is it?

Three things to remember.

• You can drag applications from their assigned spaces to other spaces. If you need to do this then decide which one of the two will move and then make sure it’s always the one that moves when you use those two apps together. When you drag applications, make sure to put them back afterwards.
• Some applications are meant to float. My experience suggests that the browser, Preview, Stickies (or equivalent), a color matching program I use and a screenshot capability I use have to float. If they get in the way at any time you just minimize them.
• Remember that drag and drop tends to work on the Mac.

There is quite a lot of learning to get this working for you, so getting the Spaces structure right quickly helps. Soon it becomes second nature. That’s the whole point – to make it second nature – so you do it withotu thinking. Whatever works for you (whatever you find easy to remember) is the best structure for the 16 Spaces.

Use Spaces intelligently and it will increase your productivity.

Click on this link: PDQ Mac to see a list of other postings on Apple Mac productivity.