I'm on Ev Bouge's The Client List. After his really great post on what I'll call Single Tasking (doing one thing at a time) he asked:

Anyway, what if you used a computer that gave you zero feedback? How would you be creative if the machine doesn’t tell you what to do?

I replied to him that I don’t think I’d like a computer that gave me zero feedback. I believe in Boyd’s law paraphrased as “speed of iteration beats duration of iteration”. Without feedback how can you know what you’re doing is hitting the mark? How can you learn from your mistakes?

I like the machine not telling me what to do part, that’s for sure. I tend to turn off all notifications and hide the dock/icons as much as I can. I use spotlight a lot too. Hit a hotkey, start typing and hit enter. It’s so much faster (and less prone to distractions) then hunting though icons or folders.

I prefer to work these ways because maybe I’m easily distracted and an old man. Or I’m high on single tasking and focus. Either way those icons and distractions can get off my damn lawn!