Are you a tab hoarder?
Are you a tab hoarder?
I don’t mean this disparagingly - I just have a question for you, :)
Okay, let me be clear at the top; I know that just because I have my specific preferences when working, that doesn’t mean it works for everyone.
But, in some cases, I do find myself shaking my head wondering, “how the hell is that a productive way to do things?”
Yeah, I know - I’m sitting on top of judgement mountain casting aspersions with reckless abandon, BUT…
When it comes to open tabs and apps on your computer and phone, I’m openly curious how this works for people.
I have several colleagues that are of the “tab hoarder” variety.
When you look at their browser window, there are so many open tabs that all you see are little triangles with no visible text.
Someone shared their screen with me once and I saw this with my very own eyes and a level of anxiety instantly washed over me.
That same feeling happened the other day when I was looking up something equipment-related on a friends phone and he had to navigate through 40-50 open apps to get to the Chrome browser.
That little adventure gave me a bout of vertigo watching him scroll through all that shit.
These two instances involve people who actually are very productive with their time, which is why my curiosity is piqued about this topic, because when I’m in productive mode, my screens look completely different.
When I'm brainstorming ideas on my phone, I close every single app but Google Drive and Google Doc and ITunes - gotta have some music when marinating on ideas, after all, :)
And when I’m on my laptop, the only open tabs are the ones I’m working in, so, at most, we’re talking 2-4 tabs back and forth between each other.
Before either task, I spend a minute de-cluttering my workspace and closing or hiding anything that doesn’t have relevance to the work I’m about to do.
Why?
I’ve created less friction flipping through open apps and tabs in order to spend the bulk of my energy on generating and developing the ideas...
...and not getting distracted by shit I looked up three weeks ago and completely forgot about.
And by distracted, I mean falling deep down a rabbit hole and completely torpedoing the objectives for the day.
For me, eliminating open tabs and apps is saving me from myself.
And what I would love to know from you - the “tab hoarders” reading this - how you save yourself from this fate and continue to churn out productive efforts despite 75,000 things being open on your devices.
Please share your thoughts on this in the comments section below - I’m really interested to hear your side of this story!
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