On Ubuntu, if you have the visual effects enabled, pressing alt+F10 will maximize a window, remove it’s window handles, and hide the toolbars (without visual effects, it’ll just maximize).

Or, you can PyRoom a try (install http://launchpadlibrarian.net/17244750/pyroom_0.3.1.1-ppa0_all.deb), although I found it to be a tad too extreme for my taste. I prefer alt+f10.

Mitch: I’m blameless on the blog thing – reading the Trout Underground would lead most people to conclude a different course was indicated.

John: Time management is tough, especially when you’ve got clients asking for a piece of your time.

Cathy: It used to be everybody assumed I could their daytime errands for them because I worked at home. Those days, thankfully, are gone.

Apart from email, my biggest challenge is people who think I’m available to chat because I work at home. I’ve trained most people but it’s hard for them to realize I may be working on a Sunday afternoon.

I try to check the main e-mail account just a three or four times a day, usually when I need a mental break from writing. The other two are not very time sensitive, so I check them a few times per week.

And I’ve started blogging, for which Tom is partly to blame. So I’ve subscribed to a number of blogs and put them on RSS feed, not the e-mail notification I had been using.

I try to have uninterrupted blocks of time to devote to work–at least 20 minutes per chunk.

Tom, I’m very interested in time management ideas for writers.

Well, actually, a little bit. I blog (your fault), I check emails on break only, I use two editors to optimize my input. I may have Google Talk on, but I have the alerts off.

Oh, and I’m probably 10x as productive as I was before the email era…