Do wallpapers aid your productivity?

[Martin_130286]

With all the discussion about productivity, it made me think about whether I do what I can to ensure I am as productive as I should be.

This lead me onto thinking about the things that divert my attention away from my task in-hand, such as loud music, interruptions and explicit wallpapers. So I came to wonder whether your desktop wallpaper (being the thing you see everytime you get a glimpse of your desktop) could aid you in your productivity.

So what I want to do is get people posting their favorite 'concentration wallpaper'. The wallpaper that you believe allows you to concentrate best and explain why it does this. The results may be interesting, and perhaps lead me to a wallpaper that helps me concentrate better than my current one.

OK - I'll go first.

This is my current wallpaper and in-case you don't recognise it, it's the top of the space needle in Seattle. I like it because looking at it makes me feel as though I am sat there in the big empty room and it gives me the sense of peace, and the nice peaceful view. It reminds me of a quiet atmosphere and being on top of the world. I truly believe it helps me concentrate better.



Well there's mine... now everyone else, don't be shy... show us your filth.

[Gothi[c]]

I have actually found that I rarely get to see my desktop, and thus my desktop wallpaper doesn't matter all that much. However, I really do love artwork in all it's forms, and I really do appreciate a pretty picture to look at every now and then. But most of the time I'm either coding in kdevelop, in a maximized window, or I'm chatting on irc with irssi running in an xterm window, which doesn't have transparency on at the moment (I tried with and without, and i've come to the conclusion that I want my text to be as readable as possible, and thus no transparency->distracting stuff under the text). xterm, firefox, thunderbird, and pretty much everything else I ever run is always maximized, so usualyl the only occasion when I'll see my desktop is when I have just started up my computer...

I'm not sure if the actual picture affects productivity, but I know that looking for new wallpapers does affect productivity (in a negative way)

I have a small collection that I keep ( http://www.linkerror.com/wallpapers ) and I usually switch between those, like every other month. Sometimes I find myself looking for a new one to add to my collection, but it isn't really that often. However, I can imagine that if you're one of those people that need a different one every day, it might become a productivity issue

[nudone]

i'd go with the wallpaper that allows you to see all your desktop icons in a clear way helps productivity (if you have desktop icons).

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[app103]

Usually the only part of my wallpaper I see is a small bit on the bottom left side that says "time to move on".



I don't keep my icons on my desktop and rarely see the full desktop unless I have just reboot.

On my other pc I made it a rule not to allow any wallpapers that weren't created by a member of my family. This encouraged artistic productivity in both my daughter & myself, while we tried to create something we could both live with. (we shared a single user account on it)

We eventually had a collection that was large enough to build a website for them, which was my first real "coding project" (I barely knew any html at the time)

I think more important than the actual wallpaper is your color scheme. It has to be comfortable or you will end up not able to use your pc for any long length of time.

While it was quite beautiful, this green theme was bad for my productivity because it caused me to get a headache after about an hour of pc usage (for my daughter it had the opposite effect and she loved it):



In case you are wondering why Windows default themes are based on blue, studies show that blue encourages productivity better than any other color. Windows color defaults were designed with office workers in mind. I can't remember the link to where I found that info, but I did come across it while doing some research on how various colors affect the human mind.

That could be very true, and it used to be my favorite color, but from experiences with Win98se I have hated that color ever since (too many BSOD's). 

[mouser]

Count me in the group of people that finds anything other than a plain solid color distracting.
I have no icons and no wallpaper on my desktop - just a LaunchBar Commander (shameless self-promotion) dock on the side of the screen.

[Veign]

My thoughts on this:
http://www.veign.com/blog/2005/10/add-some-usefullness-to-your-desktop.html

Of course I have a blog post on it.  Looking back after 1300+ blog posts in a 1.5 years how much I have covered...

[mouser]

Add guidelines to any image to show different resolutions. This is what my desktop looks like. I have my resolution set to 1280 x 1024 and have an image on my desktop with guidelines for 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768. What this does is let me see how much of a screen an applications window will fill.

hey now that is clever.. i've never heard of that idea before. very clever.

[MerleOne]

Here is mine.  Actually I found it on a Linux distribution (Linspire ?).  I like the fact it's almost a uniform background so I can better see the icons and their name.

[Veign]

Add guidelines to any image to show different resolutions. This is what my desktop looks like. I have my resolution set to 1280 x 1024 and have an image on my desktop with guidelines for 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768. What this does is let me see how much of a screen an applications window will fill.

hey now that is clever.. i've never heard of that idea before. very clever.

Helps if you do any kinda of application development or web development work...

[Redhat]

Personally, I absolutely always use a wallpaper that makes me smile / feel warm / depicts something I'm working towards. It's amazing what a difference an image can make, but it does.

I could go into the psychology if you want but I'm doing enough of that at work today... fecking colleague and me are the only ones in and I'm running around like a blue-arsed fly 

[f0dder]

Add guidelines to any image to show different resolutions. This is what my desktop looks like. I have my resolution set to 1280 x 1024 and have an image on my desktop with guidelines for 640 x 480, 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768. What this does is let me see how much of a screen an applications window will fill.

hey now that is clever.. i've never heard of that idea before. very clever.

Helps if you do any kinda of application development or web development work...

WinScraper - really handy tool.