Yes, I think it depends a great deal on how you use your three monitors. The author was using them in a way that led to distractions and then concluded that it

Yes, I think it depends a great deal on how you use your three monitors. The author was using them in a way that led to distractions and then concluded that it was always bad for productivity. What I used to do was this: - One monitor for IM, email and ticketing system on the host machine. IM is left in DND while working, but occasionally there are IMs and emails which do need to be responded to immediately. Having email open also lets me browse through any emails associated with whatever work item I'm looking at. - Two monitors devoted to a full-screen development VM. These two windows get the IDE, database windows, and the browser. I was hugely productive like this, and going to two (or worse, one) monitor was a noticeable impact and I would get annoyed at all the alt-tabbing. To me, having three monitors is analogous to having three stacks of paper on your desk. If you were working on a task that required you to look at three different sheets of paper, you wouldn't stack them on top of each other. You'd lay them out side-by-side. If you couldn't do that, you'd drive yourself crazy.