Want to work faster? Don’t use a laptop*

The best productivity hack for most people is to avoid using a laptop regularly all the time. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not using the right setup.

Laptops are great for mobility, but they are terrible for productivity. There, I said it!

Here’s why I think you should ditch your laptop and use a desktop instead. Or at least, make your laptop more like a desktop.

Don’t worry, it will all make sense in a minute.

Laptops are bad for your health

Laptops are designed to be portable, not ergonomic. They force you to adopt a bad posture that can cause neck, back, shoulder, wrist, and eye problems. You may think it’s cool to work on your couch or in a coffee shop, but your body will pay the price.

Laptops also make you more tired and less focused. The small screen, the cramped keyboard, the slow or imprecise touchpad, all contribute to a frustrating and inefficient work experience. You can’t do serious work on a laptop without feeling the strain, not for a prolonged period of time.

Laptops are bad for your productivity

Laptops are not only bad for your health, they are also bad for your productivity. The small screen limits your ability to view more information at the same time and forces you to switch between apps and documents constantly. You can’t see the big picture or compare data easily.

Laptops also lack the power and performance of desktops, at least at the same price point. They can’t handle complex tasks or run multiple programs as well as a desktop, even if in the past years the situation has gone considerably better, not only for Macs, but also for PCs.

Normal laptops are fine for light tasks, such as browsing the web, editing documents, doing some spreadsheet work, or writing a quick email. But they are not suitable for “serious work”, such as 3D design, programming, or data analysis. You need a bigger screen, a better keyboard, a faster processor, more cooling, a huge GPU, and more memory for really intensive applications.

That being said, some types of work may benefit from these constrictions. Writing your next book may be a better experience on small screen, with fewer distractions. Albeit because of the bad posture, which I already mentioned, I wouldn’t use a laptop for writing, not without doing some of the things outlined below:

How to make your laptop more productive

If you want to use your laptop for work, you can make some changes to how you work. You need to transform your laptop into a desktop-like setup. Here’s how:

• Get a good desk and chair. Adjust them to your height and comfort. Sit straight and keep your feet flat on the floor. Don’t slouch or lean forward. You know all these recommendations, I bet.

• Get a good monitor or two. Connect them to your laptop via USB-C or HDMI (most common laptop outputs). Set the brightness to a comfortable setting. Place the displays at eye level and at arm’s length. Don’t use your laptop screen as a secondary display. It’s too small and too far away.

• Get a good keyboard and mouse. Plug them into your laptop or use wireless models. Position them on the desk so that your arms are at a 90-degree angle. Don’t use your laptop keyboard or touchpad. They are too cramped and often inaccurate.

• Dock your laptop. Close the lid and put it aside. Use a single USB/Thunderbolt cable to connect it to your monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power supply, if you can. This way, you can easily switch between your laptop and desktop modes quickly.

By doing this, you will improve your body ergonomics significantly, which I find that increases work performance, so you will be more productive at little or no extra cost if you think on the long term. 

You will still have the option to use your laptop as a portable device when you need to. But you will also have the benefit of using it as a desktop when you want to. You really can get the best of both worlds.

Hint: Using a separate monitor together with the laptop screen as a secondary display might seem OK, but I would not recommend it. The reason is that the screen pixel density varies when you place both screens at a comfortable distance on your desk. This puts the laptop screen farther away and harder to see than usual.

That being said, I’m trying something like this with my work Mac. For now it seems to work fine, since I have the laptop display closer to me, but I’ll have to asses this situation in a few weeks and see if moving my head down every few seconds is good for my neck or not.

In case you need a conclusion

Laptops are great for mobility, but they pretty much suck for serious work. They are bad for your health in the long run and that ultimately affects your productivity. Laptops are not designed for serious work, not light and portables ones at least. They are designed for convenience and flexibility.

If you want to do serious work, you need to use a desktop or make your laptop more like a desktop. You need to get a good desk, chair, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. You need to dock your laptop and use it as a desktop PC.

This way, you will work faster, better, and maybe that will make you happier. You will also save money and time if you only use one device that can do it all. You’ll still be able to undock your laptop and be flexibile, when required.

Do you agree? Let me know what you think. How do you use your laptop for work? What kind of apps and tasks do you use it for?

Previous tips you may have missed

If you need to step away from your computer, even for a few seconds, it’s best that you clock access to your data temporarily. Use Win + L to lock your Windows PC when you want to block access, but don’t want to stop all current activities.