I’m still thinking about the reasoning behind Michael Williams’ TED talk and the idea of “Calm by Design.”
What about our laptops? Sure, we could use a calming picture as our desktop background, and of course we all keep our laptop homescreen free of files and folders because it’s 2017 and no rational human being would keep files and folders on their homescreen anymore. But there’s also the Dock.
To determine what apps go in the Dock, I normally ask the question “What apps do I use everyday?” But some of the apps I use everyday, or at least a few times a week, are apps that I do not love — a couple of them I don’t even like. So why would I want to have these apps staring at me every time I look at the comupter screen? It’s not hard to open Spotlight with a keyboard shortcut, type a couple letters, and hit enter to open any app you want.
So these are the two questions I’m now asking to determine what goes in my macOS Dock:
- Do I use the app everyday?
- Do I love the app?
I actually enjoy standard Apple apps, and besides those there are only three: Ulysses, PDF Expert, and Accordance.
Brian W. Davidson 