Most people who have used dual monitors will immediately attest to the large productivity improvement they provide.

Most others, who have never had the opportunity to try out dual monitors, know a fellow or two that have doubled their desktop real-estate. These people have probably thought to themselves “Hmm… that’s a nifty setup, but is it really that useful?”

These days, setting up an additional monitor on a Windows system is easy-as-pie and there are thousands of tutorials to get it going with most Linux distributions. Just click here for a list of dual monitor setup tutorials for Windows and the more popular Linux distributions.

Since the time factor and difficulty factor of the setup of dual monitors have all but been eliminated, the only remaining barrier between you and the world of multi-monitors is money. Monitors are on sale all the time and for the amount of increased productivity you’ll achieve, the price can almost be considered negligible.

If you are still uncertain about how much productivity would really be gained from having an additional monitor, I’ve compiled some ways that dual monitors can increase productivity.

Action Screen & Reference Screen: This is how I refer to my screens while I’m working. Whether you are programming, writing a paper, responding to emails, or chatting with a co-worker about a current project, it is often necessary to have more than one window open. Of course, this is achievable with one monitor, but no one likes to resize, squeeze, and fit multiple pages on one monitor like some evil Microsoft jigsaw puzzle. Most of the productivity increases from dual monitors spawn from this “action” and “reference” screen mindset.

Dual monitors allow me to work on one screen and open reference materials, chats, or webpages on the other. Not only does this save the time involved with minimizing and maximizing various windows, but it also lets me focus. The work is always on my screen, always in my view. This leads me to…

Read all »