I’m a Mac power user — surrounded by monitors that are compartmentalized by task so I can effectively multitask. But there’s a problem: I’m terrible at multitasking.
It’s so easy to get distracted by many different things, like emails or Slack chats in my peripheral vision, and before you know it, I’m splitting my attention between several different apps rather than actually locking in and completing one thing at a time.
So I did some research to find something to help me with my focus, and that’s when I came across Display Flow + Care: an app that turned out to be a breakthrough for my productivity (and for caring for my OLED displays to boot).
Cursor-based monitor dimming
It’s a simple utility on paper — dimming (or blurring) a monitor when you’re not using it. At first, it felt a little weird to get used to, because you feel blind to your comms.
However, it’s been a breakthrough for getting stuff done by making every action feel all the more intentional. Instead of being distracted by people trying to get my attention (sorry, boss), I can focus on actually getting stuff done (like this article).
On top of that, the two monitors that I use are OLED-based, which is rather susceptible to burn-in if there is static content. This is ultimately the purpose of Display Flow + Care, as dimming your panel will eliminate any risk of that.
But hidden in all the screen care benefits is a true combo breaker for maximizing your focus too. Or if you’re on-the-go, a privacy screen that you can turn on at any point. I’ve tried a whole lot of productivity tools, but this is one of the rare ones that actually feels useful.
Head tracking
Want to take it up to another level? Make sure you’re using one of the best webcams and you can take the mouse cursor out of the equation by enabling Display Flow + Care’s head tracking feature. This lets you activate different monitors by turning your head in different directions.
I’ve got mine set to turn on the side monitor on the left when I turn my head to the left, and a swift head turn to the right will activate the main panel for my workload. It just feels so satisfyingly logical — just look at the panel and it springs to life.
I recommend speeding up the unblur time too, so you don’t have to wait a couple of seconds before you can see everything you’re doing each time you move displays.
Outlook
I know that we talk a lot about upgrading your life with a beast of a desk setup, but one thing that always gets lost in the weeds of setting up a multi-monitor workstation is the tendency to get distracted by everything going on around you.
But I didn’t realize the fix would be so easy to get and so cheap too. This is easily the most useful app I’ve downloaded this year — both for preserving my monitors and keeping me focused on completing tasks too.
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