One Tab at a Time for Productivity

How many of you are “Tab-aholics” – have multiple tabs open at one time (maybe even several browser windows with multiple tabs open…or so I’ve been told)?

Does this sound familiar:

Saw an article on Facebook – and you opened a new tab to read later
Want to sign up for an optin – and it opens in a new tab
Or you have several social media sites open?

Most people know that if slows down the speed of your computer.

But it can also cause some other problems:

allows you to get notifications for social media
there is no way to “organize” all your open tabs
and no plan to go back and deal with all these tabs

All of the above lead to reduced productivity (and most likely stress).

But you can change your ways! There are some tools to help you out!

One Tab At a Time

Here are 4 types of tools to help reduce your tabs:

Suspend Tabs

There are some tools that basically “snooze” your tabs. You can usually bring them back when you’re ready to work. Most of these tools are browser or extension add-ons (for Chrome and Firefox).

The Great Suspender (Chrome) – helps your computer work more efficiently by “suspending” or “snoozing” the tabs you are not currently using. You can choose the amount of time before a tab is suspended. You can also have some tabs that are never suspended.
Auto Tab Discard (Firefox) – this app helps you with the performance of your browser by reducing the memory used. It pushes your tabs into the background – they are suspended but not discarded. If you click on the tab – it becomes active again.

There are other similar-type tools. For your browser, you can always search for extensions about tabs.

List Tabs

This tool compresses all your tabs into a list on one tab. So you can always go back and see the tabs you had open – but all in one tab. Much better for the speed of your computer. Some of these applications do not “suspend’ the tabs – only creates a list of them.

One Tab (Chrome/Firefox) – this add-on claims to “save up to 95% memory and reduce tab clutter in Google Chrome or Firefox.” With a click of a button, you can create a list with all of your tabs. You can then restore all your tabs or one at a time.
Tab Wrangler (Chrome) – This app closes tabs that have not been used in a while (default – 20 min). It allows you to have 5 tabs open, but no more (you can set your limit). When it closes the tab, it creates a list of tabs for you. So you can always go back in and find a tab that you want.

Store Your Tabs

Instead of just leaving the tabs open, you can use Evernote or Pocket to capture the URLs and then go back to them at a later date.

Evernote – is like a filing cabinet for digital information. If there is an article or a website that you want to save – you can either copy the URL and add to a “note” or you can use the webclipper – which will clip the article (the whole thing or in simple mode). Evernote is great because you can organize your notes with tags or folders – making it easy to find your information.
Pocket – with this app, you can capture content – from articles, blog posts and save them to read later – online or offline.

Schedule Your Tabs

These tools allow you to have the tabs reopen at a specific date and time.

Tab Schedule (Chrome) – This extension allows you to open specific URLs at a specific date and time. Perhaps there’s a blog that you regularly like to read – have it open to that blog as soon as a new post comes out. Or even have a tab open to remind you to write a blog post, write an email sequence, etc.
Snooze Tabs (Firefox) – save memory and limit distractions with this add-on. You can “snooze” the tabs you don’t need now and have an alarm to bring them back.

Try one of these tools to tame your tab addiction. Let me know what works for you!