About four or five years ago, I was finally able to swing my ultimate monitor setup. 27” 5K iMac in the center and a 27” Thunderbolt Display (2560 x 1440) on both sides. All three wall mounted so I keep all my desk space free. The side displays are angled inward by about 20 degrees. Unlike windows and Linux, which both perpetually don’t seem to care about hi-dpi displays and low-dpi displays in the same desktop, macOS seamlessly handles dragging windows across the entire workspace.

Main task in the main display, docs and other references on the left display and email/messages on the right. Works wonderfully.

I’m so used to this setup that when I go to my real job and am constrained to a single monitor I feel like I’m looking through a periscope at my work.

Touche. Me too work with 3 27" monitors mounted with arms, while in my company I work with single 24" monitor... It's painful.

> So a viable way is, even with two displays, don't try to utilize them.

I did that before switching to single display after having multiples from the first day of my career onwards. But I didn't even had to try. By the end, because of how my work and setup has evolved, the second display was switched off 99% of the time.

So when I have the choice I put the entire budget into an ever better single monitor, rather than splitting it.

I would recommend the same. I usually only put things like Slack or documentations in the off screens - it's pretty 'read only'. I also use ultrawide screens occasionally in my hometown's house. I found the problem with 3 displays is I cannot put one application span across displays or there would be a 'bar' in the center of the application. I have to put them far left or right instead of placing them in more comfort zones.

With that being said, I ended up with 3 monitors in my apartment because I bought them incrementally across 3 years(though they're the same model). And also I play video games from time to time, for most of the games, it's better to have 3 monitors instead of an ultrawide one.

Rectangle solved that problem for me, by making it very easy to move windows around.

https://rectangleapp.com/