Oct 19 2008
Productivity Revelation
O…M….G
I thought upgrading to a 22″ monitor was pretty indulgent, but hey – a girl puts in so many hours in front of the damn monitor, may as well make it a biggish one, right?
Well, I splurged on a second one. Yes, I now have twins – two ViewSonic VA2226w’s scored for less than $300 each. Maybe I’m a bit behind and and all the cool kids have dual monitors, but I’ve got to tell you it is simply Awesome!
My six year old surmised that I could now do twice the work. I said that I hoped I could do the same about of work twice as quickly. Well, not quite, but it has made such a huge difference! Think of every time you minimise an application or flick between tabs/applications. Need to reference something, while writing something else. Copying and pasting. It makes it so simple.
I think everyone is sick of hearing me rave about it. It’s not at all confusing. Just. Simply. Awesome.
If you can justify the indulgence, convince your boss…. whatever – just do it! I doubt you’d ever go back.
17 Responses to “Productivity Revelation”
MPS has it and it is truly awesome.
I am on a laptop so a little difficult! But at work, OMG that would be bliss…
You got a bargain there babe. Lets hope you can do the work in half the time and get some time to play
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From your mouth…. My goodness you are quick! Caught me while I was still here 😀
Two monitors are awesome. Many studies have been done on the improvement in productivity. It doesn’t double it but the increase is significant. If just 50% of your work were on your computer and it was just a 4% improvement and want to make all the cost back in one year then the cost of a second monitor (at $200) would make sense for anyone making more than $10,000 a year. And 20-50% productivity improvements seem more common.
You can see most businesses are throwing away money every year by not providing two monitors to speed up productivity. Obviously the productivity increase depends on the type of work being done but as you see almost no productivity improvement is needed for it to be wise – no I don’t sell monitors, I just have two (at work and at home) and it is great.
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Awesome. I’m on a laptop but tied to a desk due to wireless issues. Contemplating hooking up my old 17″ monitor to the laptop and running dual screens that way…. you’ve just convinced me.
Does that mean we’ll be seeing more of you round here?
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Meg
I have been using dual monitors for years, and it’s amazing the productivity gain being able to see it all at one glance and truly drag and drop between applications.
But there is more. Dual monitors (even at 22 inches) fills the central vision range. You can step it up again to another screen, to make it 3 screens, This gives you the ultimate panoramic desktop space to work on.
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Well, I don’t know if it’s made my productivity any higher, but it certainly is easier with two screens. Especially on my 19″ monitor I can have two word documents side by side I’m working on, and leave my web and email apps on the 15″ laptop screen.
Of course now I look like a total geek, but I can handle it. My laptop does appear to be struggling a little though….
Kin’s last blog post..Dads 4 Kids
I never even considered two monitors, but now reading what a great addition it can be, I am tempted; really tempted!
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sounds good. Might have to try it one day.
Hope your increase in productivity means more time to play.
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Having a dual-monitor setup is a time-saving feature as items can be open on both monitors, as you have already pointed out. It is not so much that one can do new things that they could not before, but that any processes are speeded up as one can switch focus between programs quite quickly, or have background process open on the 2nd monitor to reduce constant curiosity-causing maximization of applications.
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Sigh. I can barely afford *one* right now… 😛
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Droping off my teenage sons mates after another LAN party I noted that a number have dual HDMI ports. Yes the answer to my question they all run 2 monitors at home.
Obviously slumming it or levelling the competition when they go visiting.
Got me thinking of all those live crosses to financial analysts on TV with their 4 & 5 monitor setups. If they only had one monitor would the financial crisis be lessened proportionately, due to their lack of productivity?
Wow! having 22 inch monitor is already biggish… hmm.. I want to try that dual monitor thing. Would it be possible to put to use my 1998 monitor? LOL!! if it would be, then it would be great to bring my old buddy into life!
I’ve never worked with two monitors…but you’ve made me want to now!
At our work it’s hard enough to get biros…
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Hi Meg,
Wow, two 22’s… I’m afraid I’m a little old fashioned, a single 19 inch will do me.
I tried dual monitors, but they drove me crazy – when I go to click the X to close a window, I actually move my mouse all the way to the right, past the boundary of the screen. When I had dual monitors, the mouse would end up halfway through the right hand screen, no where near the X. It annoyed the heck out of me, so I went back to single (the second screen was my laptop screen, so it didn’t cost anything).
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I have a single 24″ monitor. It is amazing. The fact that you can have two things open and on-screen at the same time is a real improvement. If I were to go dual screen I would definitely use two monitors the same. I would not like to have two screens showing different colours and at a different brightness.
John
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OH wow, I saw a Frank Kern video and he was using 2 or 3 monitors and it made me really want to back then, it looked so great… I don’t have the room on this desk to do it though and hubby would probably think I’d gone nuts!! He thinks I’m crazy enough as it is LOL
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