There was a time that I really felt I would be more productive with two monitors. I think I found myself flipping between two windows a lot, so I made the decision to buy a 2nd monitor, got a second video card, and set myself up with dual displays. It was something like this:

I’ve had a setup like this for nearly 5 years and it’s worked well. I’d figured out how to move certain windows to certain screens and it made work much better.

However over the last 2-3 months I’ve noticed that I’m still flipping windows around more than in the past. I think some of that is the addition of some social networking gadgets and more video stuff to my desktop. I find that I’ve watched some video shows or podcasts and it’s nice to have them up, but if I give up monitor space for those, especially if I’m reviewing my own podcasts, then I can’t flip windows and that impacts productivity.

I last week I decided enough was enough. I ordered a low end nVidia based card (I learned last year you can’t mix ATI and nVidia very well) and it arrived over recently, I stuck it in there, and then fired things up.

Now things look like this:

I’ve decided that I’m using the two on the left as my main workspaces with the one on the right being saved for Twirl and video displays as well as iTunes. We’ll see if this makes me more productive. If not, I can add a 4th as long as I can find space on the desk 🙂