For the past couple of years, I've used two monitors. Doing so required installing a video card that would support an extended desktop, but having the extra display space was often useful. Much of the same convenience can be had by using a wide-screen monitor, and without the need for a new video card. A single 22" diagonal 16:9 widescreen has almost the same area as two 15" diagonal 4:3 screens.
Now lawyers using Windows have a good third way of getting more space for programs, while making what's displayed track what one is working on. Linux users have had this way for a long time, whether in command-line mode or "standard" desktops or with the eye-candy of rotating cubes; but it's fairly new for Windows users. It uses virtual desktops (also known as "Spaces" on Mac OS X).
Virtual desktops can help you focus, by committing different desktops to different groups of work: say, devoting one desktop to one client's brief, and another to generic office programs like your tickler and email. Such separation can help you focus on one task at a time, without potential distraction or clutter, or the risk of accidentally closing the "wrong" window of work.
Virtual desktops are not entirely new to Windows. But the most recent offering is from Sysinternals. It's called simply "Desktops." It worked well.
There are some limitations. I didn't find any immediate way to have different desktop backgrounds on different virtual desktops. Firefox didn't want to open in a second virtual desktop when it was already running in a first. And the control-shift-esc keychord to bring up Task Manager brought it up only on the first desktop, not in the added virtual desktops. But it costs a lot less than three new monitors. It's free. Oh -- and it does allow dual-monitor use on the
virtual desktops, too.
If you're at all into organization, it's well worth checking out: free, tiny (just 62 kB!), easy, and effective.
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