I am currently changing between my laptop and my external monitor with the NVidia X Server Settings program and I'm sure I'm doing it in a really dumb way:
I currently select the external monitor, set it from "Disabled" to "TwinView", then then select the laptop screen and change it to "Disabled". Then I press "Apply" and it's done. I do this in reverse when I need to disconnect.
It's the only way I've managed to switch monitors (both VGA and DisplayPort connections on my ThinkPad), and it's a really fiddly process which I have to perform multiple times per day.
However I really want to be able to switch with Fn-F8 or some other keyboard shortcut but this doesn't appear to work with any connection method. Is there anything better than I can do?