Once upon a time I was absolutely obsessed with how much I could cram into my OS X menu bar. I always wanted to know what temperature my processor was at, how much memory I was consuming, what the time was, how fast my network travelling. All real bullshit things that A) don’t contribute to what I’m doing B) or just serve as way too much distraction as the graphs just dart around.

Now that I’ve started working again, I always need focus on what I’m producing to ensure I don’t break my train of thought. To do that, I’ve taken to culling the distracting items in my menu bar as well as removing the menu items that just contribute to clutter. With the power of Spotlight it’s fairly easy to gain access to an Application or System Preference.

The clock
I was recently inspired by this article about switching off the clock in the menu bar and making it somewhat of a chore to check the time forcing you to work on longer sprints with about being distracted by thoughts of “gee, it’s a long time until lunch” or “I’m a terrible developer, I’ve been working on this problem for ages”. I’ve really found myself to be working faster and harder with the clock gone.

Skype
That thing just looks plain ugly being the only coloured icon on the whole menu bar. At least Dropbox has the right idea to give you the choice of choosing coloured or black icons in the menu bar.

Twitter
This is more because I have Twitter completely shut off when I’m working away during the day; especially with the new release of Twitter streaming it can be too mesmerising watching the live news of what everyone is thinking. Leaving the Twitter icon up there makes it too convenient to switch over to Twitter when something gets too hard in development land and I need my Twitter nicotine to relieve it.

Bluetooth control
Since I have my mouse and keyboard paired with my Mac I really don’t have any need to configure those devices further at any given moment. This is really the approach I’ve taken to some of the other menu items; if they have an edge case where they need to be configured once a month then there’s no need they should be in easy reach at point of using my computer. It’s just clutter.

Sound control
Once necessary, the need to control the sound levels has been taken over by keyboard controls but still being left in the menu bar. It’s very rare you need to get a quick glimpse of the sound status and when adjusting the sound level OS X gives you a great heads up display of the current volume level. is there ever a time you’re worried about the current volume level before you go to change it by one point?

Sync services
The whole point of the cloud (MobileMe, Google Apps, Exchange) is that I just want it to work in the background while I continue on with my work. No user should care what status their Contacts are in the sync process; no should they need to force a sync. It’s just too distracting when you have both the Time Machine and the Sync Services icon spinning away.

There’s something amazing about Gimme Shelter when it’s stripped into 3 parts; vocals, lead and rhythm guitar. Really makes appreciate how simplicity done when well can produce such amazing things. Even when played along, each of these parts still sounds absolutely amazing.

Imagine the crap that would result from something by The Black Eyed Peas or K$sha. Yeah, that’d be enjoyment right there.

Gimme Shelter. Islocated tracks @ Studio Multitracks

Here’s my favourite: