How to increase productivity by up to 50%
This is my desk at work. Actually it’s bigger than this picture shows, but all that’s important is what you see–my HP (widescreen) laptop and my second monitor.
I’ve been using two monitors for years, and I’ve always been asked why I needed two monitors when my work doesn’t involve graphic design or monitoring the stock market? My answer: it increases productivity. Some people didn’t believe me while others tried to give me the benefit of the doubt. I knew I was right, just didn’t know how to prove it…until I found this:
According to an article from Microsoft Research, having two monitors…
increase[s] your productivity by 9 to 50 percent and make[s] your work day easier.
Aha! The proof I was looking for!
If this is new to you, you might want to give it a shot. If you use a Windows-based laptop, all you need to do is plug in a second monitor (as you would hook up a projector) and activate extended desktop in the display properties of Windows XP. This will allow you to have two desktops linked to each other where you can drag windows from one to the other as you see fit.
What I normally do is leave Firefox open on the right monitor so that when I surf the Web (to do research of course) I can easily refer to it without having to switch windows and block the document I’m working on.
The same work (often better) on the Mac too. But since I can’t use my Mac at work, the PC will have to do.
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The HP notebook looks suspiciously like a Macbook from afar. haha.
Always nice to see where things originate from… in this case, where you write your blog posts. You are allowed to blog at work right? I wonder how many bloggers aren’t allowed to do so.