Working with just one screen

I'm a software developer. And I use just one monitor for work.

Jap, for some SW developers this is something absolutely unimaginable.

How? There's one shortcut that keeps me away from multi-screen setup:

super + number

It opens (or switches focus to) an application from taskbar (based on order). For example super + 1 will always get me to my browser as it's my first taskbar app. This is the ordering I'm used to:

  1. Firefox browser
  2. Console terminal
  3. Atom text editor
  4. File explorer
  5. IDE
  6. Instant messenger (at work), Steam (at home) - ehm, consistency, right
  7. KeePassX

It has following benefits:

  • It's super easy to switch focus to a different application. - It becomes just a muscle memory.
  • It works out of a box in operating systems I use (Windows, Ubuntu).
  • There's just one place where any application with gained focus will pop up - right in front of my eyes.
  • The setup and working conditions are exactly the same no matter if I have a laptop, PC, or laptop with external monitor (I would disable laptop's screen in this case to limit distractions).

I guess this will not fit everybody and there might be use cases where one screen is not enough - but either I don't encounter them or there are easy to overcome.