I was first introduced to dual computer monitors in 2007. Prior to that I worked from my 14″ laptop or a 19″ desktop monitor. Jumping into dual monitors of any size was quite exciting and has since completely changed my work-flow.

Now I primarily work with dual 22″ Dell monitors, (see photo below), and would recommend the approach to everyone. When I have to work from my laptop while traveling or on another machine, productivity is significantly reduced. If you only did 1 task on the computer (say look at your Outlook and reply to emails), a single monitor would suffice. But if you work with multiple applications open (perhaps a web browser, your Outlook client, MS word and Excel) and utilize several for the same task, dual monitors will change your life. If they don’t, please email me and I’ll take you to coffee so we can talk about it.

Why You Need Dual Monitors

1. Reduced Clutter: Instead of having a bunch of overlapping windows on your desktop, you can have two separate areas with clean organization.

2. Reference Multiple Applications: This is a big one. Most of the work I do on the computer requires me to be looking at two or more applications. Commonly I’m making entries to an Excel file while looking at an Analytics report in Firefox. Or I’m composing an email or other document and referencing a web page and 1 or more word documents. The list of examples goes on, but having separation of these documents and seeing them all at once is much more efficient then opening and closing to view (or even having them reduced in size to fit on one monitor).

3. Affordable Productivity: The cost of monitors has gone way down. I saw a new 24″ HD Dell monitor the other day on sale for $140 and you can likely find better deals than that. For the marginal $125-$200 depending on your taste, cost shouldn’t be a major factor.

4. More Output from Employees: If you have employees, get them dual monitor setups. They will think that you are a really cool boss, but more importantly they perform more efficiently. let’s say you have 15 employees. Pop for the extra $2000-$3000 one-time expense and get them all poised for more productive work. It may be the smartest few thousand bucks you’ve spent.

I can go on about the benefits, but the point is that if you want to get more done, then get dual-monitors. Don’t believe me? Check out this article from the New York Times on the subject. They note a study that found: “…that people who used two 20-inch monitors were 44 percent more productive at certain text-editing operations than people using a single 18-inch monitor.”

Here is one of my setups: 22″ Dell HD monitors via 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Questions or thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

Cheers,

Forest