Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wenc 962 days ago
I open tons of tabs but they rarely stay open.

I have a folder called "Daily" that I middle click each day -- they contain news sites (Google News/HN/Reddit etc.) From those I middle-click articles/comments I want to read, but my tab counts rarely exceed 20. I read those articles/comments, and I Cmd-W to close them. At the end of the day I end up with 0 tabs, and close the browser.

Even when I'm in the middle of doing research, I open a ton of tabs, save the promising ones as bookmarks in a folder, and close the rest. I take my cue from that scene in Ratatouille where the chef says "keep your stations clear" [1]. I try not clutter my tab bar with irrelevant tabs so my attention is not divided.

I've seen people who open 100s of tabs, and they do what I do except they never close tabs. To me that seems to be a sign of a cluttered mind, but it's the same kind of mind that is able to find objects in a messy room, so who am I to judge? Whatever works I guess.

The risk of not closing/bookmarking tabs is that you're one Cmd-Q or system hang away from losing all your tabs.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgiK-HWKPjw

1 comments

> I have a folder called "Daily" that I middle click each day -- they contain news sites (Google News/HN/Reddit etc.) From those I middle-click articles/comments I want to read

That's what RSS is for.

Yes, I was a Google Reader user for a long time.

When it shut down, I never went back to RSS.