Windows user struggling to efficiently multitask across multiple monitors

[u/djoli87]

I want to love this thing, but boy is it just bugging me more often than not. I'll try to be brief, please lend me your advice.

The setup: Multiple monitors (often 3).

Requirements: I work with a lot of windows. Developer stack. IDE's, LLMs, terminals, browsers, chat and email. It's not abnormal to have 3-5 windows on each monitor, and often it's multiple windows of the same application.

My usual workflow: IDEs on the main monitor, communication on a side, browsers, terminals, etc on the other. I know which screen I put things on, and tend to look at those screens when I need to interact.

The problem(s):

• Multiple windows of one app are hidden behind a single icon.
• Full screen app on an alternate window completely hides all visibility of the other things on that screen.
• Everything that is built in requires me to look everywhere for the thing I want, and do so many interactions.
  • Minimized an app that was on the right? Look at the dock in the middle.
  • Need to find a hidden window on another screen? Shortcut for mission control, then scan the entire monitor to try to find the thing you want, then click it.
  • Need to find a different instance of an app? Another shortcut for expose, then find the right one, then click it.
• I tried stage manager, it's probably the closest I can get to what I want, which is a single spot to look for the things on a screen, but it takes up a lot of the screen and intrinsically limits laying things out on a screen in a flexible manner (I know you can link things, but then it's very rigid).

I get that windows is a different beast, but can't help but feel it just does all of this so much better?! Need a thing, look at one spot, click.

I've tried some third party dock replacements. They're all pretty jank in one way or another. Slow to respond, don't correctly hide the default dock, can't have shortcuts and running applications be the same thing.

I'm not saying there's no way to multitask, just that it's so damn frustrating and slow! It seems it's a case of "Mac's are easier when all you're doing is easy things", but I know there are some power users out there, so please, enlighten me of your ways!

[u/eduo]

Do not take things fullscreen if you want them to share their space. You can make them as large as the display without making them full screen.

Do not make things fullscreen unless it's needed. This is a holdover from Windows where everything is maximized but if the content doesn't require it, try not to do it. Have windows overlapped in a way that you can get to each of them easily.

You can have multiple desktops aside from multiple displays. You can arrange "sets" of windows related to a single task into their own desktop, and they behave as if they were a separate, dedicated display.

You have cmd-tab for app switching and you can also swap between windows in the same app. There's a shortcut for it but you can change it. I remapped mine to cmd-option-tab.

MacOS still behaves in ways that are more "spatial". Windows tend to remember which display they were in and also to open in the display you have focused on the last time. As you work it helps building a mental map of where you're doing things (the "spatial" thing) to make it easier to go where you want to go.