When it comes to productivity, I’ll try my best to get the best out of me during my work hours. I’m using Todoist for tasks, Pomodoro when coding, weekly planning to get some idea of my upcoming week and bunch of other great tools on my work horse.

Up until June this year, I had an iPad 4 mini and dual monitor setup at home and the Kisko Labs’ office (btw, you should definitely check out 360° view of our office from google maps). But for some reason or another, I got interested in the new iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. I think I came up paperless sketching for the excuse to get this toy (my “old” iPad was functioning just fine).

After browsing Reddit to see what apps-I-will-never-use I can install with pencil support, I found Duet. It’s a wonderful app which allows you to use your iPad as an additional screen with your laptop/computer. It supports both macOS and windows, but not Linux. I also found another app that does the same, but with Android support. I can’t remember the name of that app though.

Anyway, that got me thinking about my setup when working remotely not-from-home. Now that I can have dual screen setup basically everywhere I go, why not use that very same setup at home and office too? I get the productivity boost from two screens mainly because I can see my dev-browser and terminal (I’m a vim+tmux user) at the same time. That need is fulfilled with the new setup.

So I end up getting rid of the monitors at home and at the office.

After being fully on this setup for a few weeks, it has worked for the purpose. One thing I’ve noticed is that it feels much easier to take the laptop from the desk and go e.g. to couch for an hour or two. Previously there was a small, temporary negative impact on the productivity when I got the MacBook from the desk. That’s because the difference between resolutions on FullHD (1920x1080) and scaled (1680x1050) retina 13”. Also, the workspaces got rearranged as there’s one screen less. And the windows sizes. All those small things. Now I only share dev-browser to iPad, which keeps all other things in “correct” place regardless do I use the second screen or not.

Some pictures

The Setup. The Setup

My view when working. My view when working

iPad resting on top of MacBook. iPad resting on top of MacBook

At the office without iPad. At the office without iPad