While I do like to have everything in a centralized location, for a few very distinctly drawable boundaries, I like to keep them separate. I work for an online company where I manage a lot of projects, and I also blog a lot nowadays. For me it is best and most productive if these two are separate, but this is quite hard to do totally. I have just come up with a solution using Window user identities that aims to organize me.
When I recently reinstalled Vista, I created three accounts. The one labeled “Daniel” is where I keep all my personal stuff, like photos, music and so on. The one labeled blog is where I manage everything related to my online stuff like posts, guest posts, other articles, website promotion and so on. The third is where I have all the stuff related to my dayjob.
This method has considerable advantages, but I’m sorry to say it has quite considerable disadvantages. It looks like it will work for me, but I don’t want to yell that out loud just yet. Read on to take a look at the good and the bad, and decide for yourself!
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Here are a few of the really awesome advantages this gives me:
- All programs are customizable to the needs of the specific task. While I need web developer toolbar for Firefox quite a lot when I am creating pages, I never need it for my dayjob. I can set up Firefox in one account with a set of addons, and another set in another user profile.
- I can also have separate document folders for these users, so I only see the docs that I need then and there. This is also an advantages because the user docs directory is a starting point for many apps.
- The desktop is separately customizable, this means I can put icons unique to each type of work on the desktop. I can have my yummy excel sheets out for my dayjob, while my post list and some links for my blog. This cleans up the desktop, adding functionality and productivity.
- This type of organization also leaves my mind clear, more focused. It keeps me from switching back and forth between things, and leaves me actually doing some work (gasp!)
Of course, life isn’t all that simple. There are a few drawbacks to this method, here goes:
- First of all, the drawback is the same as one of the advantages. Being decentralized also means it is much harder to organize your information if you want to back it up, or take it with you as a whole. Since I used to have separate partitions for this, I guess it’s much the same, but you also have different desktops, multiple Firefoxes and so on.
- If you don’t feel comfortable with it, you will probably just feel less organized and productive. I haven’t experienced this for now, but we’ll see when I put all my stuff here, and also, when I first want to back up.
- If you forget to do something and switch users, you will need to switch all the way back to do it properly, or wad through a legion of folders to do it, so in this way it’s quite inflexible
Overall, I think this is a great method, if you can force yourself to work in one of the categories and only that. For me, this is quite easy, since the boundaries of my work are easily distinguishable, but for others this may not be the case. Try it out, suggest different approaches, I’m open to suggestions
Dwayne Charrington's Thoughts
at 9:14 am
Daniel, that is a fantastic method that I’m already considering trying. Although I do like to have my music playing whilst I am working so I don’t think I could make a seperate account with my music in it.
Good idea though, might give it a go and see how things turn out.
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://www.dwaynecharrington.com
Daniel's Thoughts
at 9:18 pm
Hi Dawayne.
Oh that’s not a problem, it’s only a logical problem, where things are stored. You could still have your Media Players pull out your audio files from the place where you store them.
You can tell Media Player (any large one at least) which folders to scan. In your case from your work identity, the media player will most likely have User/Work/Music as a default path. All you need to do is set it ti User/Play/Music.
Please do drop me a line if you need any help, I think I might follow up this post with some more tips on customizing, thanks for your input
Julie's Thoughts
at 1:21 pm
Hi Daniel, I like this method as I am the type of person who likes a clutter free desktop and likes everything to be in its place. It would also help my procastinating side as well, as I wouldn’t be able to constantly check all the blog posts I subscribe to via my iGoogle page while supposedly in ‘work mode’. I might give this a try in the New Year. Thanks, Julie
Daniel's Thoughts
at 1:48 pm
Hi Julie!
This is sort of the same reason it’s working for me. I like multiple desktops, but the managers out there are VERY far from doing anything for me. This is quick, clean and easy, and built right in.
Happy New Year
Separate Work and Play with User Identities [Work] · TechBlogger's Thoughts
at 9:30 pm
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essbee's Thoughts
at 12:19 am
Hi Daniel,
It seems like a great idea, in fact I tried it some time ago, but couldn’t work out how to exclude programs from appearing on every desktop’s start menu. I’d hoped to set up an account that would exclude me from accessing the internet easily (my biggest distraction). Any ideas on how to do this?
Doug's Thoughts
at 12:23 am
One disadvantage of creating separate identities like this is that you give up some of the phenomenal search capabilities built into Vista.
The speedy and thorough search from the start menu is one of Vista’s best features, one I use regularly. I love the fact that you can type in a name, part of a name, file extension..just about anything…and get immediate and extensive results.
Of course, you’ll still be able to do these fantastic searches in all the files and programs associated with the identity you’re currently logged into, but I don’t think there’s a way to make the search engine work outside the current identity, so you loose the “complete hard drive” search capability.
Otherwise, I can see this would be a great way to separate work and personal files and identities, and keep you focused.
Cris's Thoughts
at 12:40 am
The backup issue is definitely a problem - plus if you need to transfer anything between identities, it’s not always easy to do.
I like to have multiple desktop environments and use each virtual desktop for different things. Sometimes I’ll compartmentalize them Personal/Work/Other, or sometimes I’ll just do Web & IM/Email & Calendar/Open Apps/Other.
Works just as well (for me) plus it’s like 1000% quicker. =)
Cris's Thoughts
at 12:42 am
Oh — I just noticed the above comment addressing this very thing (virtual desktops.)
It’s true that this doesn’t work as well in Windows yet, as the managers are still kind of clunky there. I lucked out in switching to Mac a couple of years ago, there are a couple of great solutions now and I can’t imagine being as productive otherwise.
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Daniel's Thoughts
at 8:32 am
Hi Doug and Cris!
I appreciate your inputs, since I am trying to find a way to make this work well, and search is something I have not yet thought of.
I think search is not that big of a deal, since if you’re working, it is probable you want to search for work stuff. It would be nice to be able to one click search for non-work stuff too, but these cases only come up once in a while probably.
I also have an inclination to change to Mac, not really because I don’t like Windows, I think Vista is pretty good, but because I am very curious about the Apple OS. Money is the main thing keeping me back, since a Mac costs at least three times my current (not that bad) laptop and it’s a totally new environment. I will make the leap in a while though
Thanks for all your comments on this and Happy New Year!
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mark's Thoughts
at 6:40 pm
Daniel,
Look into Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) as an option to Mac…I’ve partitioned my laptop to include both XP and Linux and it’s working great. I use a Mac at my day-job and love it, but the qualities of Linux are very similar to what you’ll find on Mac. It’s free, so why not give it a go?
Cheers!
Daniel's Thoughts
at 9:03 pm
Hi Mark!
I have given Ubuntu a go, and didn’t like it so much. Actually, I’ll rephrase that. Since I don’t know anything about Linux, the experience was mixed for me. If Linux become a little more plug and play, like Windows, I’ll go with it. It’s still not as accessible as it could be I think, and approaches stuff differently, i would need the time to learn it.
I will definitely post about this in a while
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Jeff Gerstl's Thoughts
at 8:00 am
Hi Daniel-
This is a very interesting idea, and worth another look….however, you opened up a very interesting idea and I began to think outside the box… perhaps future versions of Operating Systems could have system or desktop “switches.” Without having to change users and logins and all that, perhaps you would be able to right-click or Alt-Tab your way to different “environments,” for example “WORK” “HOME” or “PLAY.” So you would set up your environment and then each desktop and series of Menus/Shortcuts would be arranged for a particular environment–it would probably aid the “prying eyes” security issues too. All of your work programs in one environment, all of your videos/music/photos, etc. in another environment (maybe your banking software and video viewers and a few home-type things). Maybe all of your games and “diversions” could be placed in their own environments. And since the environments could be programmed to run in the background, this would allow your music players and such to continue running even if you are in the WORK environment, yet save you from disruption and clutter. By using the search feature in Vista, or an expanded menu that could be shown, you would have access to ALL of your programs should you need them, but once again, it will keep things clean, clutter-free, and hopefully productive. I am thinking this is the next step of the OS regime, if there is not a third-party software not already being used.
Daniel's Thoughts
at 10:21 am
Hi Jeff!
Thanks for your thoughts, I think that there is definitely room for improvement in OS’s in this area. There are utilities that enable desktop switching (especially in Linux), but so far I haven’t really seen one that can accommodate my needs.
One great thing you mentioned would be if Media player could continuously play, regardless of which environment you switch to. This isn’t possible now, since you aren’t changing environments, but Users. You can set up all media players to play music from the same location, but you still need to press the play button again.
I am working on a follow-up to this post to show some of the methods I’m using, so keep an eye out, and thanks again for your comments
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