Single-tasking on a Mac: how to work on one thing at a time

The simplest way to single-task on a Mac is to make the one thing you are working on the only thing on screen. Press Option-Command-H to hide every app except the one in front. To go a step further, put that app in full screen with the green button, or with Control-Command-F in most apps. Stage Manager and separate desktops (Spaces) give each task its own clean stage. Then close the tabs you aren't using.

None of this makes you focus. What it does is remove the cues that pull you away: the corner of a chat window, a red badge, a browser tab with a headline in it. Each of those is an invitation to switch, and every switch costs more than it seems. Here are the tools, from quickest to most thorough.

Hide everything else

Hiding is the fastest way to clear the screen, and it is easy to undo.

• Option-Command-H hides every app except the one you're using. Their windows vanish, but the apps keep running.
• Command-H hides the app in front, if it's the one distracting you.
• Show All, in the app menu next to the Apple menu, brings hidden apps back.

Hidden apps still appear when you press Command-Tab, and switching to one brings its windows straight back, so nothing is lost. Hiding is usually better than minimizing with Command-M, which only sends one window to the Dock and leaves the rest of the app on screen.

A good habit is to press Option-Command-H every time you start a piece of work that matters. It takes half a second and clears away the morning's leftovers.

Use full screen for one app

Full screen gives one app the whole display. The menu bar and the Dock hide until you move the pointer to them, and the app gets its own space, separate from your desktop.

To enter full screen:

• Click the green button at the top left of the window.
• Choose View > Enter Full Screen, in apps that offer it.
• Press Control-Command-F in most apps. On recent versions of macOS, Fn-F (Globe-F on newer keyboards) also works.

Press the same shortcut to leave, or move the pointer to the top of the screen and click the green button again.

If you need two things side by side, such as notes and the document you are writing, rest the pointer on the green button. Recent versions of macOS show options there for tiling the window to one side of the screen, which puts two apps next to each other with nothing else in view.

Full screen also changes what you see at the top of a notched MacBook, which full screen apps and the notch explains. If you use Notchpals, full screen is one of the times its characters hold back: nothing peeks out of the notch until you leave. That protects the work, but a whole afternoon in full screen also means no water or stretch visits, so step out between tasks.

Try Stage Manager

Stage Manager keeps the window you're working in at the center of the screen and tucks your other recent apps into a strip on the left. Click one in the strip and it swaps in. It suits people who find full screen too sealed off but plain windows too cluttered.

Turn it on from Control Center in the menu bar, or in System Settings > Desktop & Dock under Stage Manager. Two settings there make it better for single-tasking:

1. Show recent apps in Stage Manager. Turn this off and the strip on the left hides until you move the pointer to the left edge, so the screen holds only your current work.
2. Show windows from an application. Set to One at a Time, clicking an app brings forward only its most recent window rather than all of them, so one document doesn't drag the app's other windows in with it.

To work with two apps together, drag a window from the strip onto the center, and the two stay grouped as one stage.

One desktop per task with Spaces

Spaces are separate desktops, each with its own windows. They are a tidy way to keep tasks apart: writing on one, email on another, the project you're avoiding on a third, where you can't see it.

• Open Mission Control with Control-Up Arrow, or the Mission Control key (F3 on many Apple keyboards).
• Add a desktop by moving the pointer to the top of Mission Control and clicking the plus button at the right.
• Move between desktops with Control-Left Arrow and Control-Right Arrow, or swipe left or right with three or four fingers, depending on your settings in System Settings > Trackpad.
• Jump straight to one by turning on the Switch to Desktop shortcuts (Control-1, Control-2 and so on) in System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control, if your Mac lists them.
• Pin an app to a desktop by right-clicking its icon in the Dock and choosing Options > Assign To > This Desktop. Mail can then live on the email desktop and never appear on the writing one.

In System Settings > Desktop & Dock, consider turning off Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use. With it on, macOS reorders your desktops as you use them, and the desktop you expect on the right may have moved.

Close the tabs

A browser full of tabs is a row of small invitations. Each one is a task you started, or meant to, sitting in your peripheral vision.

• Keep only the tabs for the current task. Command-W closes the tab in front. Right-click a tab and most browsers offer Close Other Tabs.
• Don't fear closing. In Safari, Shift-Command-T reopens the last closed tab, and History keeps the rest.
• Park tabs instead of keeping them open. Safari's Tab Groups let you save a set of tabs for a project and close them all. Reading List does the same for articles you mean to read later.

If you keep a separate browser window for reference material, put it on another desktop so it's there when you need it and gone when you don't.

A single-tasking routine

Put together, a focused hour on a Mac can look like this:

1. Decide the task and its first step. Write it down. A five-minute plan at the start of the day makes this quick.
2. Clear the screen. Switch to the desktop for that task and press Option-Command-H.
3. Choose your view. Full screen for one app, Stage Manager or a tiled pair for two.
4. Close what you don't need. Tabs, documents, the chat app. Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center in the menu bar (under Focus) so banners wait too.
5. Set a clear end. Pick a time to stop and check messages, so you don't have to keep wondering.
6. Before you switch, write the next step. It makes coming back far easier, for reasons covered in the cost of switching tasks.

For step 5, Notchpals can help if Bolt, its Focus robot, is in your crew. Click the pair of eyes in the menu bar, choose Start a focus session, pick 25 or 50 minutes, and Bolt pops out to mark the start.

BoltSingle-task protocol active. Other tabs, stand down. That means you.

For the length of the session everyone else in the crew waits. Bolt, a nearly flat battery and a meeting about to start are the only things that can still break in. Bolt comes back when the time is up, and that is your stopping point: look up, stretch, then go through everything you hid, on your own terms. One catch: like the rest of the crew, Bolt stays hidden while you are in full screen, so for timed sessions a Stage Manager stage or a tiled pair works better than full screen if you want to see the end arrive.