Optimizing your productivity with multiple screens and virtual desktops

I wrote an answer over on stackoverflow that was voted up so I thought I'd elaborate on the idea and post it here.

This is going to be old hat for you long-time linux gurus, but for ages I was stuck in the paradigm of one desktop, a taskbar, and window management. I blame my extensive use of Macs and Apple's lack of support for virtual desktops when I was growing up. Today, with linux, compiz, and the era of $10/GB DRAM, you really have no excuse not to embrace multiple desktops.

The idea is that instead of doing window management, you just leave all your windows open and arranged all the time. Never minimize again. Just switch between virtual desktops when you need to "context switch" from one project or workflow to another.

So for a web development project you might have one virtual desktop with:

• Monitor 1: VIM
• Monitor 2: Firefox
• Monitor 3: xterms, other misc stuff

On another virtual desktop you might have Photoshop and GIMP and some other image tools. And on another desktop you might have another instance of firefox for fun and irc and your chat sessions.

Here's what my set of 9 desktops looks like right now (all together it represents 10080*3150 pixels):

Once you've tried this way of working you'll feel positively clausterphobic when you're forced onto a system that doesn't support virtual desktops.