Look at your browser.
How many tabs are opened?
How many of those are of any use to you right now?
How many have been hanging there for more than a week?
And how many of those do you keep opened
so that you can read or watch them later?
Today we are going to discuss our internet surfing habits, more specifically browser tabs. Why shouldn't you keep numerous tabs open in your browser all the time?
Several years ago an answer would be something like - "Keeping dozens of tabs open in your browser slows down your computer!".
These days it isn't problem anymore for most of us - computers get faster and cheaper, and new versions of browsers are more optimized than ever. I can easily keep 30+ tabs opened at the same time and it doesn't effect my PC performance at all. If anything - all that extra memory and CPU power encourages us to open more tabs 馃榾 Some folks, keep more than a hundred tabs open, all the time O_o
But as much as it useful to some people it can be a cause of problems for others.
Here are two main reasons why you should reconsider keeping dozens of tabs open at the same time.
First problem that arises from such practice is "multitasking". More appropriately called - "switchtasking" by some people.
We are most effective and productive when we concentrate on one task at a time. Just as we enjoy something the most when we are fully committed to it, without distractions.
And yet here we are - unable to pay attention to one thing for more than 5 minutes. Constantly checking up on social media and e-mail. This not only hinders our productivity, but straight up wastes one of the most important resources available to us - time. What's worse - we engage in such practices not only during work, but during our free time as well - when we watch something interesting or entertaining, listening to podcasts... We constantly interrupt ourselves, preventing us from enjoying our free time to the fullest.
So maybe, instead of keeping all those social media tabs up and running in the background at all times, we should learn to close them and focus on one thing at a time.
Another reason to get rid of all those opened tabs is stress.
Some tabs we keep opened - are something we "save for later". For some of us 90% of tabs opened fall into that category. We are sure that if we bookmark a site - we will never check on it again. But if we just keep it open, we will definitely read it later... Yet somehow, later never comes...
Notice how, quite frequently, it is only those articles and videos we postpone, that require some effort on our side. We never delay watching a cute kitten video, but we leave an article on "10 steps to becoming a better person" for later. After all we have to actively concentrate on it for like 10 minutes, and then analyse our lives and think about how we can apply the lessons we learned. That's hard! And not as fun as watching kittens for sure!
Now, if we were simply to close those tabs and forget about them, that wouldn't be such a problem really. But we keep it... After all we are going to check it out later. And now, after a week or two have passed, there they are - still in the periphery of our vision. That little icon reminds us of our failure to be true to our own commitments every time we open our browser to do something else.
Alternatively we may keep something fun in the background, something that we want to check out after we finish studying or researching something. But I bet you can see the problem with that approach already - it distracts us from our task at hand. There is a good reason, after all, why people who have difficulty concentrating on their studies hide all the sources of distractions, keeping them away from eyesight. Seeing something fun and being able to switch to it in seconds - is a great temptation and a hindrance to an untrained person.
All that, once again, makes working or studying in internet a stressful errand for some of us.
That being said, everyone's different and I'm not saying that you all should just stick to one tab in your browser at all times. It would be stupid not to utilize all the tools available to us, and being able to open several tabs is an invaluable tool after all.
There are people who have to monitor multiple sites in real time - they have to keep more than a dozen tabs opened all day long. If we are looking up information for our studies, or writing a post on steemit - we often have to keep multiple tabs opened as well. Hell, my Japanese study requires at least 6 tabs - I need my dictionaries, grammar resources, sites with practice exercises...
It ultimately boils down to how you feel about it. Do you feel in control? Is it part of your daily life/work routine? Do you feel comfortable with a hundreds of tabs opened in your browser? Or does it stresses you out, makes you feel like you are not as productive, like you are procrastinating a lot? Maybe you hate any form of clutter, but simply can't kick the habit...
If latter is the case for you - keep an eye out for my next articles. I will be explaining how to stop postponing things indefinitely, how to effectively manage multiple tabs when you have to, and how to use your browser's built-in tools and extensions for maximum productivity.
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