Organize, find, and manage your work in the browser
Having too many tabs open while working in the browser is frustrating and overwhelming. Not to mention the productivity deficit. So then why do we all do it?
We’ve all had it before — and some regularly have too many tabs open. When it gets to the point where you can’t even read the page titles or find yourself bouncing around 2–3 tabs before finally landing on the one you want, you know you have a problem.
Having too many tabs open can be extremely distracting, wasteful, and resource heavy on your browser — forcing you to lose time and work slower.
Most people who use a computer for work use a browser. More and more tools, apps, and websites are moving to the browser. This means most of your work is heavily reliant on, you guessed it, the browser. If you’re constantly distracted and bogged down by an army of tabs then your work will suffer as a result of this.
Let’s address why we always have too many tabs open and how to fix it.
If we can understand why tabs accumulate while working in the browser we can develop solutions to the root causes.
Often times we run across a website that we think we might want to look at, read, or reference later. It could be something stumbled upon while browsing, something sent to you by a coworker or friend, or just something you looked up. This is information that we don’t need right now, but we might need it later. People keep tabs open that contain information they might need later because they’re scared to lose it or worried they won’t be able to find it later.
Keeping a tab open as reminder to do something (read an article, send an email, review something, etc.) is a great way to keep track of tasks until you have so many tasks (open tabs) that it becomes overwhelming and distracting. People keep tabs open to remind themselves to perform a task, todo, or action item.
Maybe its your email client, a tool you use at work all the time, or a website/app you check frequently. Having it open is obviously convenient. People keep tabs open that they reference frequently.
All in all keeping tabs open because you’re scared of losing them, as reminders for tasks todo later, and as tabs that you frequent, they all add up to 10–20+ tabs open at all times. 80% of these you likely don’t need for the current task at hand. So, how do you solve this?
We can reduce clutter, focus on the task at hand, and speed up our work just by effectively managing the tabs we have open at any given time.
We wrote in detail about what to do when you have too many tabs open, but it all comes down to effective tab management.
Unfortunately, chrome (and other browsers) aren’t designed for productivity. In fact, they are designed for you to browse as many websites as you see fit in any given session. If you want to get a grasp on your productivity, you’ll have to be mindful of how you work.
How can each of the above problems be solved?
Keeping tabs open because you’re worried you won’t be able to find them later can be solved in two ways: A saving mechanism or a finding mechanism. If you could easily save tabs and find them, you wouldn’t be so worried about closing them.
Keeping tabs open as reminders can be solved with a better reminder mechanism. If you’re able to separate your reminders / todos from browser windows and tabs you’ll be able to stay on top of things while keeping your browser decluttered.
Keeping too many frequently visited tabs open can be solved with session partitioning. That is just a fancy term for separating the things you work on (Eg. work, school, side-project, personal browsing, etc.) and only opening the the frequently referenced tabs with respective to their session/work environment.
There are many methods to tackling these challenges within chrome (and other browsers) such as using multiple windows, multiple chrome profiles, or multiple desktops but they all fall short in some way. Multiple windows just magnifies the problem. Multiple chrome profiles are cumbersome to manage and don’t address cross profile work (eg. what if you find a link you want to save to your ‘personal’ profile while in your ‘work’ profile?). Finally, multiple desktops aren’t saveable, syncable across computers, or restorable.
Thats why we designed Partizion. A browser extension designed from the ground up to help you organize, find, and manage your work in the browser. I go into much greater detail on the shortcomings of existing technology and strategies in this Manifesto. However, if you simply want a better way to save find, and open groups of tabs at once, all while organizing your work in the browser, I encourage you to checkout and try Partizion for yourself. You — and your productivity — will be thankful.
