Dual screens: a lifesaver

The best thing I've done for focus and productivity at work: set up two screens as monitors.

My desk at work

When I started working in August, I was lucky to be greeted with a laptop and desktop, but had the same image appear on both screens. I used the laptop to walk around the office for meetings and the desktop while I was sitting down and wanted the big screen.

My busy time started to die down and I had some extra time, so I called our IT desk to set up the dual monitors. They set it up and showed me how it works, and you can drag various documents, programs or applications from one straight to the other. For example, I can look at one Excel spreadsheet on the laptop and a larger spreadsheet that I'm populating on the desktop.

I thought it would take some adjustment, but it has actually done wonders for my level of focus and attentiveness to a project at hand. When items are on one screen, I have multiple documents, work email (good old Lotus Notes), Gchat, our work instant message program called Sametime) and presentations open - and any message can pop up. With separate screens, I can remain focused on a project on the big screen - and drag over distractions like email, Twitter and instant message to the other and look at them when I choose. It's been great! If you have two screens - I highly recommend you set it up!