In the last few weeks, I have been trying to improve my cluttered Mac environment.  My dock had gotten quite full, and to make room I’d have to make the dock so small I wouldn’t be able to read any of it.  And, I’ve been doing a lot of developing WordPress lately so I’d been trying to use OS X’s Spaces to help.  So, after chatting with my brother about our organization skills, I came up with a few tricks I thought I’d share.

Uber Spaces

Mac OS X’s Spaces is a great organizational tool.  Apps can be confined to a single space so that your view isn’t cluttered with 10 open programs each with 3-5 windows each.  Cool idea.

Well, take that to the logical ultimate.  16 spaces each with its own app focus.

Each space has a “theme” that governs what should appear in the space.  For example, I have individual spaces for my browsers, my social media apps, my chat apps, and my music apps.  I have the spaces set up for only those apps, as well.  So, when I click on Seesmic in my dock, it jumps to the social media space, keeping my browser separate.  It keeps everything in a logical place.

Alias Folder

My dock was organized by topic, mostly.  Firefox and Safari are next to each other, and OpenOffice and the iWork apps are close together as well.  The issue was that I began to aquire too many apps that I wanted quick access to.  Hence the shrinking dock problem.

Solution?  Make alias folders.  I now have a folder entitled “Aliases” in my Applications folder that has a bunch of aliases I made of the apps I wanted quick access to.  I organized them into subfolders (such as “Social Apps” for Seesmic and Tweetie, and “Office” for my office apps) and dragged the subfolders into the right side of my dock.

Now, I have quick access to my apps – which are all organized into folders – without eating a bunch of space on my dock.

The Looking Glass

Still one problem remained.  I use the internet for half of my computer use now, like Gmail, Google Reader, FriendFeed, Facebook, etc.  So, my spaces plan goes out the window.

The answer is Prism.  This plugin for Firefox (also available as a stand alone app) can create “apps” for individual web pages.  For example, I saved Facebook as one app, Gmail as another app, and FriendFeed as another.  That way, I can group Facebook, FriendFeed, and Seesmic all in one space without having to use Firefox.

You can set it up for any webpage you want.  I have my Google apps under prism as well, so my Google Reader is separate from Firefox.

All of these help keep the workspace manageable.  And I hope you find these useful!

What kind of tips, tricks, or apps do you use to help out your workspace?