Why Does Your Productivity Disappear the Moment You Travel?

You’ve nailed your home office. Dual monitors, a clean desk, noise-cancelling headphones, your favourite coffee… it all flows. You’re focused, in control, and productive. You're completely immersed in what Cal Newport calls "Deep Work"... Then you hit the road.

A client meeting. A conference. A week of travel. Suddenly, you're hunched over a hotel desk, juggling half a dozen tasks on a single laptop screen. You're trying to recreate the flow you had at home, but it’s just not happening.

Sound familiar?

Dual-screen power is proven by people and science

Something here time and time again from our customers: once you've experienced the freedom of dual monitors, going back to a single screen on the road isn't just uncomfortable, it's measurably less productive. 

The research is clear, more screen space is better for work… 

• Jon Peddie Research found an average productivity increase of 42% when users worked with two monitors instead of one. That's not a marginal improvement, that's the difference between finishing your quarterly report before dinner and pulling an all-nighter in a cramped hotel room.
• A University of Utah study, sponsored by NEC Display Solutions, concluded that dual screens have a 33 percent lower error rate than single screens. 98% of users preferred a dual monitor configurator to a single monitor.
• Forrester found that 80% of users believed that more screen space via a larger monitor would positively affect their work performance.

Once you have a solid setup at your desk, you have adapted to having an optimised space. When you travel, you're not just changing locations; you're also breaking your trained cognitive workflow.

Business travel stacks the deck against you

Travel doesn't reduce your capacity to work with the best setup, it conspires against your productivity in multiple ways:

• Jet lag challenges your senses and body clock. 
• Conference fatigue from those long business trips leave you running on fumes and questionable airport coffee. 
• Hotel desks are a good attempt at a home office but don’t have the setup you're used to. 
• Time zone changes pushes you out of sync with your teams, family and routine of morning emails, midday project management, and afternoon calls…

… then, when you finally carve out time to tackle your actual work, you're forced to cram a full-scale operation into a laptop screen that suddenly feels smaller than a Post-it note.

As Cal Newport explains in Deep Work: "Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on." 

How can you focus when you're constantly switching between locations, tasks, tabs and struggling with cramped screen space? Enter the ‘Toggling Tax’.

The hidden cost of a single-screen

It's not just about being a little slower. Every time you alt-tab between applications, your brain does a tiny context switch. Every time you minimize a window to check something else, you're creating cognitive friction.

A study referenced in the Harvard Business Review from 2022 states that app-switching costs the majority of workers 30 minutes per day (2.5 hours per week). Multiply that by the stress of travel, unfamiliar environments, and limited time, and you're working in a completely different mental state. In 2025, this number could potentially be higher still!

It's like trying to watch the latest blockbuster movie on a smartphone… technically possible, but you're going to lose a lot of the experience in the translation.

Your productivity toolkit shouldn't need a permanent address

The whole premise of remote work is that great work can happen anywhere. But somehow, most people think that relegates them to a single screen. Of course, that’s where we come in.

From our inception, we've asked the question: "What if your desk setup could travel as well as you do?"

Our portable monitors aren't just smaller versions of your office display, they're purpose-built for the modern professional who refuses to accept that productivity ends when you’re on the road.

So, where does an espresso Display ‘fit’ into your business travel workflow?

• The espresso Touch 13: Ultra-portable and perfect for the minimalist traveler who still wants maximum screen real estate
• The espresso Touch 15: Interactive capability that turns any surface into a command center
• The espresso Pro 17: For those who believe that bigger is better, even at 30,000 feet

One cable, zero compromise. Your familiar dual-screen workflow, now with a passport.

Because great work shouldn't be deskspace-dependent

We believe that your ability to do your best work shouldn't be held hostage by hotel furniture and laptop screen sizes. As Cal Newport puts it: "If you don't produce, you won't thrive—no matter how skilled or talented you are." 

Whether you're closing deals in Singapore, presenting to clients in Seattle, or working from a coffee shop in Copenhagen, your productivity tools should work as hard as you do.

Your espresso portable monitor isn't just a piece of tech, it's your productivity insurance policy. It's the difference between getting by on your next business trip and absolutely dominating it.

Ready to stop leaving your best work at home? "Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not." What matters is getting your best work done, wherever you are.

Because the only thing that should change when you travel is your time zone, not your ability to do great work.