Emacs Means Work

When I’m in Emacs, I know I’m at work. Everything about my environment says “serious,” “work,” and “productivity.”

I do this by running Emacs in full screen mode, with a minimum of frills. No menu bars, no scroll bars, no icons. Main text in green on a black-black background. It’s totally immersive, and it says to me, “You’re here to get things done.”

Obviously this isn’t right for everyone. Your own ideas may differ. Probably will. That’s fine. But whatever your favorite setup, whatever configuration makes you most productive, you may also feel that Emacs means “work” and puts you in a mode and maybe even a mood that enables serious work.

To be sure, you can find distractions within Emacs. I’m not particularly talking about the moderate handful of Emacs games that you can access, although Emacs tetris, Emacs chess, and so on, can all be brought to the screen if you wish. There are things like obsessively polling email, reading Slashdot and similar newsfeeds, playing tunes with EMMS or your favorite Emacs audio player. Now you can even watch YouTube in Emacs.

But still, the stark screen layout, in full-screen mode, doesn’t give me the urge to waste a lot of time. I entered Emacs because I had things to do. Why not just … you know … do them?

Yes, Alt-Tab and you’re out of Emacs. This is not some sort of absolute thing. But it’s strong psychological encouragement. It works well enough for me. Maybe it will for you.