Tab rules

Stagiaire Fash

What rules do you have to keep the number of tabs you have open down to a full roar?

I just deleted roughly 496 tabs. I can’t even tell you what they all were, kept meaning to sift through them, because I was close to the limit. Many were things I thought I ought to read….someday. I have started using bookmarks more often lately, but that seems so permanent. As I just learned, tabs most certainly aren’t permanent!

Anyway, lamentations aside, the point here is that I have a brand new clean slate and get to set myself some rules so I don’t wind up with an unwieldy number of tabs open again. One rule I’m setting myself is no “someday” tabs. If I see something I want to get around to, I can only leave the tab open if I have a clear plan for when I will deal with whatever it is. No permanently opens tabs for language helps and word count; I’ll set bookmarks instead.

What are some other smart ideas about using tabs?

3 years ago

Off Topic

12 replies

Latest reply was from Zaeobi

rachylou

Veteran

You are speaking to someone with 20 tabs open… and like 20,000 pins on Pinterest that I’ve never revisited…

3 years ago

Stagiaire Fash

Veteran

If I pinned every page I was tempted to leave open in a tab, my phone would surely explode from all the extra Pinterest spam.

3 years ago

Sloper

Veteran

If I've been doing research on a topic, I sometimes cut and paste the links to a Word document. And add a few words to describe the link. So I might have a Word doc of useful links for health research, or knitting resources, etc.

Or save the articles as pdf documents.

I know my own temptations and remind myself that "many things are interesting, and there will always be interesting things, and I don't need to save EVERYTHING." Not that this always works

3 years ago

kkards

Veteran

Well I’m probably the wrong person to ask, i generally close all my tabs a couple of times a day. It drives me crazy to have a million tabs open. If is find something that’s interesting I either read it right then or I copy then link into the notes app on my phone. And I’ll be honest 90% of the links never get reopened and I delete later

3 years ago

Bijou

Veteran

I'm with KKards!

3 years ago

Kathie

Veteran

I never have more tabs open than fit across the top of my browser window (so 8-10). If I generate more than that, I close some. I find that this helps me stay focused and also finish those projects that need that "one last thing." Nodding along with Sloper- if I'm doing research, then I cut and paste into a document.

3 years ago

Ginger

Veteran

I bookmark specific links into a folder. Most of what I keep open is things I'm keeping an eye on, like specific blogs/websites or listings, or commonly-used sites.

3 years ago

Barbara Diane

Veteran

Often I copy the link and email it to myself. But then I rarely open the email. I get caught up in -that recipe looks interesting, I’d like to revisit the handouts from that class, I might buy X.
I think I need to stop and ask myself is that a wish/dream for a life with endless time or will I actually do it/refer to it. I do tend to keep tabs open to remind me to make a decision/take an action.

3 years ago

anne

Veteran

On my phone I am pretty bad. Just deleted a few and got down to 91!
I do often save links to notes when I want to keep them, it's just that sometimes I am lazy and don't. Plus I have the habit of opening up a new window every time instead of just changing the address in an existing one.

3 years ago

Stagiaire Fash

Veteran

Barbara Diane, you got me! Hanging onto things hoping that “someday” will drift over here sooner rather than later is exactly what leads me to keep these open!

Since posting this, I’ve tried to be more dutiful about only keeping things open that I intend to get to for real. Right now it is limited to a bunch of job ads. I’ve also remembered what one of those early 500 that closed was—a really amazing recipe for apple strudel! I hope I can find it again. This time, I will have to make sure I save it right away. It was slightly different than I anticipated, and so very yummy! But since I haven’t remembered & gone looking for any others, I wonder how much they really mattered.

Thank you all for your comments and encouragements to keep the tab monsters at bay!

3 years ago

Staysfit

Veteran

Open tabs? LOL! I must be the wrong person to ask…….

3 years ago

Zaeobi

(website)

Veteran

Sorry to revive an old thread but I didn't realise - there's a limit to how many tabs you have open at one time?? Oops lol, I should really look into this - 'for a friend'

I think Google Chrome has a 'read later' function? Otherwise there's a handy keyboard shortcut to bookmark all tabs in a window (I tend to use multiple windows to 'organise' my multiple tabs). I use that at the end of a session to place all tabs in my own 'read later' folder - which I rarely do, lol...

3 years ago

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