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James_Miller comments on Instrumental rationality/self help resources - Less Wrong Discussion

35 Post author: gothgirl420666 18 July 2013 02:58AM

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Comment author: James_Miller 18 July 2013 05:53:16PM 9 points [-]

Dual computer monitors. I've had this kind of setup for several years at work and home. It seems to really help, although it does encourage multitasking.

Comment author: BrassLion 20 July 2013 11:27:32AM 0 points [-]

I've anecdotally seen this too - I have one monitor of work and one monitor of reference material, and it speeds up my work by a pretty large amount. It doesn't matter for all kinds of work, though.

Comment author: Antisuji 19 July 2013 12:29:42AM 0 points [-]

In my experience the effect is minimal and tends to be overshadowed by other, stronger effects. For example, at my last office job I had a laptop plus monitor setup at my desk, but unsurprisingly found that I was usually much more productive if I took my laptop to an empty conference room. Of course it's possible I'm just doing it wrong.

Right now I work at home and sometimes at coffee shops and I find the flexibility of choosing where I work (and in what posture) to be well worth the missing screen real estate. I am strongly considering the purchase of a new "Retina" Macbook Pro, but I don't anticipate huge productivity gains because of the extra pixels.