Multiple Tabs and Your Productivity
I have one sincere question for you.
Why do you have 100 tabs open on your computer/laptop/mobile phone? Are you planning on saving up with those tabs to go on vacation to Seychelles or do you need them to fund your startup?
I know you will say yes 😂 because the information on those tabs can actually help you fund your new startup, sponsor your soft life lifestyle, and even afford you an all-expense paid trip to Seychelles or wherever you desire, but on a serious note, why do you have 100 tabs that you have not visited in the past 3 months?
This question I just asked, was the same question my boss asked when he caught sight of the numerous open tabs on my laptop, yes, I’m guilty as well. We are all guilty though, especially if your work involves using a computer or browsing the internet every second, every minute, every day.
You would think the many unused open tabs are only on the computer/laptop, it’s a lie o, open chrome and counts how many tabs you have opened that you’ve not used in the past weeks, and see for yourself.
If you ask around, you will realize that we have so many unused browsing tabs because we assume that we will need the information we found in those already opened tabs.
Guess what, the next time you need the information, you will open a new tab and abandon the previously saved tabs. Yes, because there is a limit to what your brain can remember based on time, and that was one of the reasons why we have writing materials and other tools to help us store information and knowledge.
For example, I met someone around 8am, we exchanged contact and promised to keep in touch. The person chatted me up 2 hours after, and after pleasantries, I went ahead to ask for the name and even claimed he did not state his name. He actually did, and we even made a joke about it, but i forgot.
One out of many instances.
In the same way, you don’t want to discard the plastic bag you got from Shoprite or Spar or any store you visit, because you believe you will need it someday. I’m not asking you to discard them or to stop having multiple tabs open on your device, but here is a list of better ways to achieve your desired result.
- Keep a tracker of resources you feel you may need in the future. You can use a google sheet, notion, or whatever digital tool you are used to for this. It will save you the stress of keeping so many tabs open and also reduce the possibility of losing an important document you assume you can keep with the numerous opened tabs on your device.
Imagine despite having those tabs open, your device decided not to come up and it becomes quite difficult to access that precious document, if you had kept a cloud-based tracker, it would have been much easier to access the documents when you need them.
2. Practice decluttering after you finish a task that required you to have those tabs open. Take, for instance, today you are working on an article, you research which is a justifiable reason to have numerous open tabs, you successfully finished the article and it’s published. Tomorrow, you have another article to write and you proceed to research, increasing the number of open tabs you have. And the cycle continues and you end up having 100 tabs opened. For what, is it for eba, is it for garri, is it for beans and dodo?
Just like you clear your desk after the day's work, include clearing out your tabs at the close of work each day.
3. Prioritize your tasks and work on them according to their order of priority. I understand this can be sort of difficult, but it’s not impossible. Having numerous open tabs on your device, according to Ellen Scott of Metro is a sort of multi-tasking called “task switching. Because you are busy “task-switching”g, you end up sometimes, with a reduced completion rate of your task.
With the exception of rare cases where you can handle multiple tasks simultaneously, it’s best you focus your time and effort on one task at a time. Your productivity is determined by how you prioritize your activities.
I hope with these points of mine, I have successfully helped you to see better ways to become more productive.
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