Dual Monitors - Vanity or Productivity Booster?

For quite some time, I noticed that some people that I considered very "techie" had two or even more than two monitors.  To be honest I felt that it was just a bit ostentatious. Then for some reason (I can't remember exactly how right now), I came into possession of two LCD monitors.  I decided to use both of them since I had the desk space.  I must say that I have fallen in love with using two monitors and I apologize to all those anonymous folks that I thought were just being vain.  Two monitors is truly a productivity booster.  At one time I would have thought that having two windows open at the same time on one monitor was great, but that was before I started using the two monitors. There are a number of circumstances when it is especially useful to have two monitors.  One such circumstance is when you are trying to follow some complicated instructions.  Open the file containing the instructions, slide it to one monitor and use the other monitor to follow the instructions.  Another circumstance might be when you have two instances of the same program open.  I regularly use BOTH Chrome and Firefox as browsers.  Chrome is set to be on my extended monitor, Firefox on the other.  Works GREAT! 

Getting Organized for a New School Term

The beginning of a new semester is the time to get organized.  While I still do make use of the ever-present yellow Post-It Notes of various sizes (the physical variety), I have found that one big disadvantage of them is that they are only in one place.  More and more all of us are using a tablet, a smart phone, and... oh yeah... the PC to keep track of what we need to do.  One GREAT cross-platform FREE software is Evernote.  I recommend giving it a whirl.  I have upgraded to the Premium version, but could probably get along just fine with the free version. 

Here are some things that you can do with it. 

Find a Tweet, or get an email that you would like to save?  Are you on your phone and not at your desk?  Your Evernote account comes with an email address, so you can simply forward whatever you have to Evernote.  I have a neat app on my iPhone called CamScanner.  It turns a camera shot into a PDF which I can then email.  One way to use this for business is to scan those restaurant receipts, turn them into PDF's, and email to Evernote.  You can then organize them according to the consulting project in Evernote. 

Another nice feature of Evernote is that the notes that you save (which can contain pictures, text, audio, or video) can be organized into Notebooks.  Notebooks can be organized into Stacks.  You might have a "Stack" for Class Notes.  Under that Stack, you have a Notebook for each class that you are currently taking.  Notes can have Tags, which can be searched for.  For example, use the Tag "Assignment" for class assignments. 

For an extensive list of the ways to use Evernote, try THIS article from Lifehacker.com.