What Your Browser Tabs Say About You

Maybe you're inattentive, maybe it's deeper than that.

My record for number of open tabs in my desktop browser is 224 tabs.

I mock my wife when I see her browser and how many tabs she has open, but I don’t dare show her mine.

The secret is to group your tabs under groups, then nobody see’s that there are 73 tabs open, but unread.

I’ve posted on social media about it, I’ve joked with peers about it. Generally, I make light of the whole behavior, as it seems innocent enough.

But maybe there’s more to it…

Why are we opening tabs if we don’t immediately visit the page?

At first glance, it seems like the problem is simply that we got distracted or forgot about them. This is an obvious answer, but not a thoughtful one.

Since I can only talk for myself, I’ll walk through the process.

When I’m reading a link-laden story, or if I’m on a catalog of sorts, I recognize that going to a linked page will pull me away from my current objective. Clicking “Open link in new tab” is like saying “I’ll check this out later.” Sometimes the intensity of my focus means that a single page may generate 10+ fresh tabs to “check out later.”

Sometimes, I’ll get a link sent by a friend, so that gets a fresh tab.

Other times, I’ll open a link from an email, or a chapter from a lesson. These go to a new tab filled with possibilities.

The other, most innocent of behaviors is for me to create a collection of tabs that I use when I’m priming myself for some behavior. I have a folder called “Deep Work” which, when I open it, will open 10 tabs with different work specific pages and audio resources for white noise and productivity. This is the smart way to have too many tabs, I can close that whole batch after the job is done. But often, when I’m working, I’m opening tabs for reference.

My point is, it’s easy to fill up your browser with content that languishes for some future you to consume.

Mindfully, respectfully, we would all benefit by a hard rule of some finite number of tabs. If you can close your browser entirely then you’re on the path to peace and clarity.

---

Huge tab collections is the new silent killer

Opening a tab is innocent. Planning to read it later is aspirational. Leaving it untouched for a day… and it starts down the path of “snowballing.”

I’ve had days when I jump between my open tabs, thinking I’ll start to whatever that tab represents. Maybe I’ll research more about dopamine, maybe I’ll watch that video on creating templates in Notion. I can literally watch myself start to crush beneath the weight of options. Self-imposed responsibilities.

When my browser gets so loaded that I can’t even look at the collection of tabs, let alone start to process them, I know it’s going to be a bad day.

In the world of knowledge work, or of student work, every browser tab is something you could be or should be working on or processing. It’s not the same if you just use your computer for fun and consuming entertainment. When you work at your computer, the browser becomes your desktop. Each tab, an open book, turned to a specific page.

We all need to have a clear intent and recognize our relationship with the content we’ve saved in our browser.

---

What’s the answer? How do I manage all these tabs?

Generally, we had a clear reason for saving something to ‘check out later.’ Unfortunately, it’s often mindless. The solution is two parts:

• Be intentional when opening a tab.

• Be intentional when returning to a tab.

The missing piece is the review process. This is a necessary function of knowledge management.

When you’re exploring ideas, you need an intelligent manner for organizing it, but more importantly, you need to take time when you will process the information and distill it into something useful.

Learning doesn’t come from the consumption of the content, but in its integration with the rest of your knowledge. That’s what makes each person valuable, we all integrate knowledge into our own unique collection and perspective.

It’s important to let things go as well, if you’re so overwhelmed by the possibility of all the ‘knowledge’ you’ve saved, it’s ok to walk away.

---

Sometimes you just have to declare bankruptcy

Sometimes you’ve just saved up too much content and don’t have a way to move past it. I’ve been there. It was so bad that I couldn’t do anything, not because my computer was running slowly, but because my brain was.

Sometimes our brain is like a computer, having a finite amount of storage or working memory. If we have too many things queued up, we’ll start to slow down and our performance becomes unmanageable.

Just like with a computer, sometimes you need to flush the cache or even restart the application altogether.

Learning to just say goodbye and giving up on those tabs may be the last skill you need to learn.

Don’t bury yourself with things you could or should be doing. When you can’t do anything, starting over is the only way.

---