Shut down your...browser (tabs)
There are a few reasons you may have too many tabs open:
You are saving things for later
You were in the middle of something and got interrupted
You are visiting/checking some websites or web apps so frequently that you figure it is easier just to always have them open
You’ve got Internet FOMO
BUT there is only 1 reason why you should ever have multiple tabs open:
You are currently working on a task or project that has information spread across different web apps/pages. In other words, you need to see and have available the CONTEXT necessary for your work.
Tabs. Tabs on tabs on tabs. Are you in a battle with tabs right now? How many open tabs can you count in your browser window? Don’t worry, I’m not judging. When I am on calls with clients and ask them to share their screen, at least 75% of the time the first thing they say to me is “ok, but please don’t judge how many tabs I have open!” I’m not judging. We can work on this together.
Our struggle with too many tabs is purely about mindset and approach. We are coming at this thing with a tab mindset - rationalizing legitimate reasons why we need those tabs open. You might be saving things for later, you got interrupted and think you will come right back, or just keeping things open because you want to click on them again and again. But what is the context that each of those tabs is living in?
Context. Dictionary defined as “the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.” We want to have all the information we need ready at our fingertips. There is SO MUCH information swirling around. Without context, we can get lost in it. If we approach the use of tabs from the mindset of building and operating within context, then for the most part having those tabs open makes no sense at all.
For example, let’s think about a New York Times article open in one of your tabs; the context for this is that you want to read it. It is sitting next to a tab that is the login screen to your college alumni portal; the context is that you recently got a new job and want to update your information in the portal. This tab is sitting next to your gmail tab; the context is that you are still working on your relationship with email and have the urge to click and look into it every few minutes. This is sitting next to a tab with your amazon cart; the context is that you need to buy some new socks, but you want your partner’s input first because they always know the best socks to buy, but you won’t see them until later tonight so you are keeping it open until then. And what about when you are focused on just one project or workstream, and all your tabs have different information on them that are part of that work?
With a context mindset, we can take more productive actions and place information where it will be most useful to us at the time we need it.
This is the ideal situation: place your tabs in context and close the tabs, as early and as often as possible. Now, am I myself in that ideal place yet? HELLA NO. I have multiple tabs open many times. My biggest open tab mistakes are with my calendar and my gmail. Don’t really need them. Why are they open? I’m going to close them now. It will be ok. But I’m just saying, this is a journey and a process. Like Inbox Zero, it is something I’m continually working on, and you can be, too.
Two things I have noticed from approaching digital materials from the “context” mindset:
I don’t use bookmarks anymore and my browser window is minimal because it doesn’t display the bookmark bar.
Just typing in the Chrome URL bar will get me most of what I need out of my Google Drive, so I don’t really use folders anymore, either.
One word of caution: There are many resources out there for “managing” your open tabs. I am not talking about how to manage multiple tabs. Instead I am asking you to adopt a context mindset to get rid of tab usage altogether. If you do use some sort of tab “management” system, consider how the context mindset can be applied to that system.
The exception to this rule is the use of an extension like Tab Suspender that will stop open tabs from taking up so much memory on your computer and slowing everything down. If you do one thing today, please install something like Tab Suspender and save the memory usage on your computer!!
