I like to have an ergonomic keyboard at my desk, multiple big displays and all that. But since I started using a tablet with a little keyboard, I noticed that most of my side project work happens there, not on my fancy home workspace; even when I’m at home.
It doesn’t make sense at first – my “big” workspace is better in every dimension: there is this fancy ergonomic, mechanical keyboard; on iPad I have shitty rubber keys with layout I’m less used to. Huge screen can fit several terminal windows and a browser, compared to 10 inch tablet screen that fits a small browser window and one or two open files in the terminal, at best.
But there is another force at work here. Minimal workspace brings constraints, and that helps me to focus. While the big workspace is objectively more comfortable physically, the smaller is sometimes more comfortable psychologically when I’m not at my calmest state.
Sometimes, more comfort accidentally leads to less focus.