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I've always struggled with hoarding tabs. I'll often have dozens open. I've even got to the point of having over 200 open at the same time.
There are a lot of people on both sides of this. Some people, like me, keep an abundant supply of open tabs, and others never do 🤔
I'm no psychologist to theorise about why that is. But I have come to a conclusion to why I am like this.
Fear.
Many things in life find their way back to fear in one way or another, and I think this is one of them. I'm afraid of closing tabs. I know how silly that sounds.
Usually I open a tab for a reason.
- It's a tool I use regularly
- Relates to a project I'm working on
- Is a great reference for something
- etc
So I don't want to close it because it is providing (or will provide) some kind of value. Value I don't want to miss out on. And who knows if I will ever find it again 😱
I'm afraid that when I take a break from a project and come back to it later, I'll forget all the context I had and need to waste time looking for the stuff I need (docs, examples, etc.) - things I had already collected.
So I leave them all open. For weeks. Then months. Maybe even years. Just in case I need them.
Sounds like hoarding. And, for me, it probably is.
So what have I done about it?
First I worked my way to a clean slate. Taking the time to organise the tabs I had open.
There were three kinds:
- App or service I use regularly
- Solution was to install a native app for it or create a web app. This gets it out of my main browser and gives me an easy way to open it again.
- Resource I want to remember
- Bookmark it, add it to Readwise, create a note for it in Obsidian, and/or take a screenshot and put it in my Nextcloud server.
- Haven't really decided where these should go, so putting them everywhere for now. That is a battle for another day.
- Things related to a project I was working on
- If it was more than a week ago, either close it or treat it as a resource.
- Otherwise spend a bit of time on that project so I no longer need this tab.
Once I reached a clean slate I set a rule for myself: close one project before moving to another.
What does this mean?
When I'm working on a project or researching something, I open as many tabs as I need (as normal). But when I switch to something else, I bookmark all those tabs into a date stamped folder (e.g. 240918-website-redesign) and close them. This restores a pristine clean slate I can use for the next project. When I want to switch back, I do the same, bookmark and close all open tabs. Then I can open all the tabs I bookmarked for the project I'm moving back to.
This turns my main browser into a tool to get stuff done instead of a tool to store information.
It also helps me focus on that single task. I no longer need to sort through dozens of unrelated tabs. I know everything I have open relates to my current project in some way.
If I come across things I want to store outside a project (good resources, tools, or blogs I like), store them in a different bookmark folder, in Readwise, or in Obsidian. But act on them immediately. Don't leave them open indefinitely.
In the end I'm tricking my brain. Bookmarking all the open tabs gives me the peace-of-mind that I can restore them later. Even if I never do. I might come back to a project weeks later and choose to start from scratch - and that's fine!
Bookmarking them took away the fear of closing them. Whether I choose to use those bookmarks or not is irrelevant.
I'll keep experimenting and sharing my thoughts on this as I have a strong tendency to hoard tabs 😅
See you tomorrow-ish 👋