Ever notice the difference between a cheap roll of Saran Wrap and an expensive roll? For spendthrifts, it’s hard to justify paying twice as much money for a roll of sticky plastic. But the differences are obvious. A great roll is easy to tug. It doesn’t cling too vigorously on itself but sticks snuggly over a bowl. Most importantly, a great roll tears off easily.

At the grocery store, it’s tempting to opt for the cheap brand; after all, we’re talking about Saran Wrap. But the few dollars we save initially is paid back each time we have a frustrating experience ripping off that stretched, unsticky piece of plastic.

Multiply the Saran Wrap experience with everything else we might do in the kitchen. When every tool is less than optimal, our overall experience is marred by little moments of nonproductivity. The more little things that get in our way each time we try to get work done, the less productive we’ll be.

This same philosophy is especially true for us programmers. Productivity depends on every little thing that surrounds where we work. Our work environment should do everything to minimize that distraction.

A Really Fast, Versatile Machine Is Worth the Extra Cost

That’s why it’s critical to invest in good hardware. The financial costs we put in up front will invariably pay off every day, in the currency of productivity.

I recently upgraded from using a seven-year-old Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop running Windows XP to a MacBook Pro running Windows 7 on Parallels. The investment was monetarily substantial, but for that singular, one-time down payment, I now reap the benefits every minute I’m working.

There was nothing wrong with my old laptop. I could upgrade its memory for a hundred bucks and keep tolerating it for another few years. However, in many small ways, it was becoming similar to that average roll of Saran Wrap. There were small disadvantages that I was paying for every coding session.

With my new laptop, I can now take advantage of both platforms at once. I can run a much speedier version of Photoshop on the Mac, in a pinch, while still working on a .NET application with Visual Studio on the Windows side. Plus, I can browser test on both PC and Mac without having to set up multiple browsers on one of those cast-off computers—the ones companies typically denote the “Browser Testing Machine.”

The advantages aren’t limited just to the software. I’ve even fallen in love with the keyboard. The keys are flat and thin. They have just the right responsiveness to the touch. They let me type more fluidly and seamlessly as compared to a traditional bulkier keyboard. I make far fewer typos on my new keyboard.

Now, consider the impact of each typo I don’t make. That’s one less moment of having to break my train of thought. That’s one less moment of having to move my eyes from the screen to the keyboard to retrace my steps. That’s one less moment of, then, having to remind myself where I left off in my train of thought.

Suppose I make only four fewer typos a day with my new keyboard (in reality, I’m sure it’s much more than that). In a given year, that’s about 1,000 fewer minor interruptions while I code, all for the cost of just one new keyboard.

Invest in More Real Estate

In the kitchen, more countertop space is never a bad thing. When we’re making a recipe that involves a few dozen ingredients and a couple bulky appliances, a vast expanse of area in front of us is essential. That way, we don’t have to stack items on top of each other. We can organize our tools in different areas of space as we please.

More countertop space means less chance we accidentally set raw ingredients on top of cooked ingredients, drop a bag of flour on the floor, or overcook an egg because we are looking for where we put the salt.

In programming, screen real estate has precisely the same value. When we have only a single monitor to view our work, we have to make compromises. There’s not enough room to keep our development environments, browsers, and communication clients “on the countertop” at the same time. We’re forced to flip between states 1,000 times during the course of a workday.

Suppose we want to rigorously test our code in a development environment while running the compiled application in a browser. Without enough screen real estate, we can see only one application at once—or maybe both applications resized to thin, horizontally scrolling widgets. Those little adjustments are distracting. They can kill a tenuous train of thought.

Just like the kitchen countertop, multiple monitors are a big boon to productivity.

In a dual-monitor setup, keep your programming environment in the full screen directly in front of you. In the other screen, keep up your test browser and have any other programs (such as email or chat clients) accessible from there as well. This way, you can stay focused on your development and test on another screen at all times.

If you have a triple-monitor setup, keep your programming environment directly in front of you, your test browser up on one screen, and all the other programs (such as email or chat clients) on a third. If you want to concentrate for a few minutes without the distractions of blinking taskbar icons and unread messages, you can just turn off the third screen temporarily.

As an aside, the next time you’re out on a job hunt, looking for that next great gig, scan the office to quickly tell whether management is in touch with their development team—whether they really care about the work environment they’ve set up for their developers. Count the number of monitors in the room and divide by the number of employees. This number is your in-touch quotient.

The environment you’ve been running on for a few years may seem fine to you right now, and you might be accustomed to its temperaments. But spending those extra few thousands of dollars is an investment in productivity, not just an expenditure.