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Grayscale to increase your productivity

7 points by jpadvo ↗ HN
Color is fun. But it is probably making you less productive.*

Try counting all the elements on your screen right now that are specifically designed to grab your eye with color. Maybe a dozen program icons in your taskbar/dock, as many favicons in your browser window.

Two dozen items that were designed specifically to grab your attention. And if you are viewing a website or using an IDE? Probably way, waaaay more.

Turning off color makes it much harder for these things to stand out. Which makes it easier for you to concentrate and get work done.

Try it!

* I don't have any evidence for this, just a hunch. If you can confirm or debunk this, please do!

GRAYSCALE FOR MAC Go to the Universal Access settings, and select "use grayscale."

GRAYSCALE FOR LINUX http://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/xorg.conf.5.html :)

GRAYSCALE FOR WINDOWS ...isn't possible unless you are using a CRT, have certain video cards, or run a third-party program. I found one that seems to perform well: http://users.telenet.be/littlegems/MySoft/DesktopZoom/Index.html * Set the zoom to 1000/1000. * Under the mouse tab, uncheck "Big Mouse" and "Hide Real Mouse" * Under colors, select "grey" and select a depth; 256 works fine. * Under tracking, uncheck "thumbnail" * And that's it. By the way, did I mention that I want a Mac?

16 comments

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sorbus
"I don't have any evidence for this, just a hunch. If you can confirm or debunk this, please do!"

So, are you actually trying it yourself? If so, you should have at least anecdotal evidence. If not, not only is your idea worthless but you're not standing behind it.

Yes, I am being rather harsh. Perhaps it's because I've never found myself becoming distracted from what I'm working on by a brightly colored icon.

jpadvo
I should have been more clear - I am trying it, and do have anecdotal evidence that it is good. I don't mean consciously distracted - having a cluttered real-world desk can be a subconscious drag on productivity, and so can a cluttered screen. This is just a way to help reduce visual clutter. Different stokes for different folks, though. This might not matter for you.

Directness of speech is a good thing. I wouldn't worry about being "harsh" in a place that values it like HN does.

hagridlove
This is an interesting idea, I am going to try it out just to see if it changes how I work (for better or worse). If you are using an nvidia card you can go to the card properties and turn the digital vibrance down to 0 to get a gray image.
WillyF
Oddly enough, before reading this I randomly decided to change from a background image to just a gray background. I also cleaned up my desktop, and I did feel some sort of difference in terms of productivity. I'm as up to date on e-mail as I have been in a very long time, but it could also be because I'm going on vacation for two weeks tomorrow.
jpadvo
Sounds like broken window theory:

"Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_theory

electromagnetic
I do a lot on a netbook, so I changed to having a hiding start menu rather than an ever present. It was more for viewing space, but I actually found myself less distracted afterwards.
_ques
After turning Grayscale on, it took me 2x the time to go back and disable it, because i was looking for the "blue" icon and had a hard time distinguishing between all the icons.

Color helps in _saving_ me time as well -- so let's not forget that :)

jpadvo
You bring up an interesting point. Having controls that stand out and grab attention is good when you don't regularly use them. But while working, in most cases you'll already know the interface well, and don't need it to stick out in order to use it efficiently.
sgt
This is why NeXT developers were so productive in the early years.
dwc
This is one of many reasons I use a tiling window manager (scrotwm). It doesn't set out to make everything gray, but it ends up having pretty much that effect when the screen is tiled with xterms and there's no wallpaper, desktop icons, taskbar, etc. Why use only color to help focus when you can use a WM that's designed with focus in mind?
eswat
I’ve been using the Graphite appearance for OSX and using a neutral grey background as my desktop for a while now—I don’t keep stuff on my desktop either. Really helps dull out the noise around my windows when using the monitor (I prefer not to have windows maximized in this case).
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sielskr
I'd like to grayscale my browser while leaving Emacs in color.

Actually, I'd pay good money for a grayscale version of Firefox.

mathgladiator
For windows + nVidia, you can turn "digital vibrance" down all the way and it will be grayscale.
alexqgb
It's true. I've replaced most of the icons in my dock with subdued, low-contrast versions. I really appreciate not having a bunch of fruit salad cluttering up the bottom of the screen. Occasionally I'll launch something that doesn't have a custom icon, and it'll stand out in the most distracting way.
mryan
Hmm, interesting. My monitor (Samsung P2770) has a menu option to enable grayscale, which I have just switched on. I am not sure that I could use this permanently but it does seem to be easier on the eyes. The icon in my taskbar that is currently flashing away is certainly less distracting.

However... my vim colour scheme is now useless, and I am about to review some mockups from a web designer, so this might be a short experiment.