If you’re like me, you always feel a bit of guilt about your bad habit of having too many open browser tabs. A well-organized, productive person would be more disciplined. My bad browser habits are obviously a sign of my chaotic, cluttered mind.

Or are they?

James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits, is definitely very productive and organized. And he too has a “bad brower tab habit”:

*“I bet I’ll read at least 30% of the tabs I have open over any two-week period. If I don’t get around to reading a particular tab, then it must mean it’s not really that important to me — but at least I gave it a chance!”

• How James Clear is Writing His Next Book*

Maybe that’s a good attitude towards browser tabs. They’re not a to do list. Just because you keep a tab open doesn’t mean you’re now required to actually revisit it. You don’t “fail” if you don’t get back to that tab.

It’s simply a way to handle the massive amounts of information we’re confronted with every day, it’s an additional filter that allows us to later sift through anthing we found intersting, and decide: Is this something that’s worth my time and attention?

And if not, get rid of it.

Pro tip: James Clear uses a Chrome extension called OneTab, which makes it easy to save all your open tabs in a list to review later. It’s free, and you can get OneTab here. (I’ve used this extention myself too and really like it for the simplicity.)

If you’re like me, you always feel a bit of guilt about your bad habit of having too many open browser tabs. A well-organized, productive person would be more disciplined. My bad browser habits are obviously a sign of my chaotic, cluttered mind.

Or are they?

James Clear, bestselling author of Atomic Habits, is definitely very productive and organized. And he too has a “bad brower tab habit”:

*“I bet I’ll read at least 30% of the tabs I have open over any two-week period. If I don’t get around to reading a particular tab, then it must mean it’s not really that important to me — but at least I gave it a chance!”

• How James Clear is Writing His Next Book*

Maybe that’s a good attitude towards browser tabs. They’re not a to do list. Just because you keep a tab open doesn’t mean you’re now required to actually revisit it. You don’t “fail” if you don’t get back to that tab.

It’s simply a way to handle the massive amounts of information we’re confronted with every day, it’s an additional filter that allows us to later sift through anthing we found intersting, and decide: Is this something that’s worth my time and attention?

And if not, get rid of it.

Pro tip: James Clear uses a Chrome extension called OneTab, which makes it easy to save all your open tabs in a list to review later. It’s free, and you can get OneTab here. (I’ve used this extention myself too and really like it for the simplicity.)