Can Using A Bigger Monitor Increase Your Productivity?
The Wall Street Journal says a larger monitor can increase productivity by up to 52% (!) for certain tasks according to a recent study. I'm not that surprised.
Last year when I bought my iMac, I decided to go for the biggie--a 24 inch monitor. My reasoning is that I am looking at the computer for much of the day 5 days a week, so why strain my eyes?
I never thought that having a bigger screen would affect my productivity, but the bigger screen is quite addictive.
I do a lot of work that combines emails and internet, and I can have my email open on one side of my screen and right beside it the website that I'm working on. And any other little screens I need (documents, spreadsheets, etc) I can have them open too, and my screen is big enough to accommodate the crowd.
I notice the biggest difference when I have to work on a "regular sized" monitor (this means anything that is smaller than my screen :-) ), and I always end up saying "This screen is so small! How do you work on this thing?" (Of course completely forgetting that up until last summer I had "regular sized" monitors too.)
The WSJ article says that an increase in size up to a 24 inch monitor is uber helpful, but with monitors larger than 24 inches productivity dropped off again.
Productivity 501 has a great post preaching about how to maximize productivity on a larger screen (up to 24 inches) which I've found ever so helpful:
Getting the Most from a Large Monitor
Really, I was amazed at the little tricks you can do to take advantage of a larger screen, so do check out that post.
Also, do any of you guys work on biggie screens? Please share your tricks!
I am sure I got more work done when I had two monitors. It is just impossible to do work and keep an eye on Twitter in any other way ;)
Posted by: Gavin Heaton | May 19, 2008 at 05:26 PM