Played around with the window manager i3-gaps after seeing Luke Smith on Youtube. Seems really productive but I'm so used to minimizing windows.
What is the usual way in i3 to deal with Windows you keep open in the Background? Do you just move them to a different workspace?

I just move certain applications to specific workspaces. For example, discord is always workspace 6, steam is always workspace 5.

@sSam Is there a way to template the position of certain windows? For example i have the browser on the left half and two other messaging apps on the right side. Always takes some time to position it right...

@Ederbit yeah you definitely can, I bind my applications to always start on these workspaces automatically. You can also save your current workspaces and load them later.
I'm a pretty basic i3 user, so your preferred search engine will be a better help to set it up correctly than me.

Move them to scratchpad. Read docs for more info.