Multiscreen setup and productivity research
{ Posted on Jan 09 2010 by pawel }
I am doing a little research on productivity for one of our projects and I thought I’d ask you for a little help.
It’s really a question for those of you who use double (or more) screen setup at work. Do you find that you are more productive with two screens? Could you give some examples of how you use your two screens setup? Also, if you could let me know how your productivity was affected when you got the 2nd screen.
I know how it affected me but I don’t want to base this project on my own experiences. So any help would be greatly appreciated.
You can either leave your answers in comments or email me directly.
Many thanks for your help.
I use to have 2 screens when working in a company and I did find an improvement. I would have my main screen display what I was currently working on and all the supporting applications on the second screen. That way I didn’t have to be minimizing shuffling through the different applications + email, it was much more organized that way.
I use at least 2 screens all the time (I got a little 7inch USB screen for my laptoping) and I find that the biggest gain is the separation that it forces you to implement; I used to go for big screens and use a variety of widgets to rearrange windows into halfs or quarters (similar to the Snap feature in Windows 7), but it ended up as a complete mess.
With two screens there is a certain amount of discipline required in how you lay out your work; I generally have mine arranged in a “Inputs”, and “Outputs” layout, so I’ll have ebooks, web pages, reading material, google reader, twitter, etc all on one screen, and dreamweaver, console windows, onenote, proposals etc to be written on another.
Works great! Highly recommended!