Are you always working on spreadsheets?

Is Excel the bane of your life but at the same time a necessary evil?

If you are one of the many office workers that has just read the first two lines and are now sat looking at this shaking your head in acknowledgement, we empathise. Not only is minimising and maximising your screen to transfer data from one spreadsheet to another, an arduous task, but it is so counterproductive and soul destroying that it has been proven to be a contributor to office in-efficiency.

So how can you overcome this – the answer, dual monitors. Yes that’s right, you have to spend money to save money. Recently the New York times did an study of office ergonomics and dynamics trying to see what can be done to assist with productivity and relieve stress in the workplace, it was found that workers that had a dual screen set up in their workspace actually upped their productivity by 20-30%!
Now you may be working for a business that does not like spending the money and when you inform your boss if this, they may simply say, minimise what you are working on and half your current screen… Although this will allow you to work on two spreadsheets at once, it does not give you the screen real estate you need to get things completed efficiently.
Imagine you are using one screen and you are doing online research, you may be required to compare data across multiple sites, having multiple tabs open at one time, we all know how quickly the space gets used up, and we all know how confusing it can be if you are then wanting to transfer said data onto another spreadsheet, yes minimise, maximise, oops lost it….

So, can Two Monitors really increase productivity?

Depends on the work you are required to do; say for example you are completing;

• Data entry
• Excel
• Emailing
• Working with large spreadsheets
• Online chatting such as Skype
• Graphic design

Having more than one monitors will allow you too:

• Compare documents side by side
• Switch seamlessly between apps or even have two or more open at once:
• Graphic design projects: you may need to review two versions of an image to run a comparison. You can also view the image on one screen while making edits on the other.
• Keep chats open as you work without having the screen pop in front of the work you are doing.
• With an auxiliary monitor, text and images will be larger and easier to work with, which will assist in reducing eye strain.

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Is it hard to set up a dual monitor configuration?

In a word no, but you do need to ensure that prior to spending your money on a second screen you do need to…

1). Check to see what type of video input port on your device. Laptops usually have these on the sides, while laptops have these ports on the back.

2). There are different types of video input ports and these vary across devices, with variations in shape and size. Make sure you know which type of port your computer has, as it will be necessary to match the port to the second monitor’s type of input plug. The most common video ports include:

• HDMI
• Min-VGA
• VGA
• DisplayPort
• DVI-D
• Mini HDMI
• DVI-I
• Micro HDMI
• Mini DisplayPort, Thunderbolt
• USB Type-C, Thunderbolt

3). Make sure the cable matches: again, make sure the cable has the correct plug/pins that will fit your device. Some monitors are plug & play, making them easy to install. However, you may need to buy an adapter to fit your computer’s port or the monitor’s plug.

4). Connect it all together: once you are sure the monitor’s plug/pins fit your device’s port, and/or you have the proper adapter to connect the second monitor to the computer, then you’re ready to put it all together. Connect one end of the cable to the monitor, and then connect the other end of the cable to the computer.

5). Turn the monitor on: now you’re ready to go—turn the monitor on and make sure everything’s working!

If you believe that a dual screen set up would benefit your or your employees and are thinking it is just too much of an outlay or too much hassle then do not. At Systems Integration we have great deals on office IT hardware and if you call on us to assist we even have the engineers that come to your place of work and set everything up. Interested? Get in touch and take the first step in increasing your office productivity