How Many Monitors Should You Use?

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Using multiple monitors might sound like a crazy idea, but it’s one of those things that once you try it, you’ll wonder how you ever got along with just one monitor.  When I’m working at my desk, I have a 20" Sony flat panel monitor that I used with my MacBook.  

Two monitors enable me to minimize time switching from one thing to another and helps me be more efficient by keeping what I need to work on easily visible.  I typically keep my case management program (Rocket Matter) visible on the Sony and then whatever I’m working on (email, etc.) on my MacBook screen.  When I’m drafting a document, I can keep my reference material (notes, letters, pleadings, etc.) visible in one screen and my word processor (Pages) on the other.

Legal Practice Pro recently published an article about the benefits of using multiple monitors, which asked

How many monitors is enough? Well, that depends on you. For me, the limit is 2 – one laptop screen and a widescreen monitor capable of keeping two windows open at 95% each. I find that having more monitors gives me free reign to indulge a lack of concentration and maximize the potential for distraction.

Do you use multiple monitors in your law practice?  If so, how many do you use and what benefits have you gotten from doing so?  I welcome your input in my Comments section below.

Source:  "Multiple Monitors In The Law Office Yields Increased Productivity … To A Point" by Jay Fleischman, published at Legal Practice Pro.  Thanks to Finis Price for his post about this article.

5 thoughts on “How Many Monitors Should You Use?”

  1. Ben:
    Are there any special adaptors or software you need to accomplish this, or is it simply plug and play? Funny that I have flat screen laying around my house with my old PC, but I never thought of utilizing it with my Macbook Pro.

  2. I use two, 18 inch, side by side. If you’re doing any work with multiple documents, especially cutting and pasting between them, you need multiple monitors. I worked with one monitor for years then we were given 2 and I can’t remember how I ever did intensive document work with 1.

  3. We went to two monitors for every lawyer in our office 20 months ago. I have two 20″ LCD’s, Incredible how much better the work flow has been. I keep one monitor with billing/case manager open at 50% and email at 50%; the other is for documents, varying sizes, for the windows. Our office is Windows based (unfortunate) but the advantage of two monitors is tremendous regardless of your OS.
    At home, I’m all Mac, all the time. I have a 23″ Cinema display + my MBP. Mail, iCal and Omnifocus open on the MBP all the time, docs and browser on the big screen. Easier on the eyes, and having Mail/iCal/Omnifocus on the MBP screen takes them out of my main focus when working, but they are there for easy reference.

  4. At the office, I use an Apple 24″ LED monitor with a 17″ MBP. Usually, the 24″ monitor is my main screen, which easily handles two applications or documents side by side. The MBP display has my “utilities”: email, calendar, VoIP phone clients, iTunes, etc.
    Instead of limiting everything Desktop to either-or, I wish Mac OS X allowed a dual display “arrangement” where the Desktop itself with icons for devices, folders and files could be shown on the smaller “utilities” display, where I usually have extra space available, while the menu at the top of the Desktop could be shown on the larger screen, allowing a shorter mouse trip from the applications or documents on which I am working.

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