alt Hacker NewsMy digital workspace is a complete mess. Tabs keep piling up, whether in Chrome, Notepad, or other apps. I don't even know why I still have so much old stuff open, I'm thinking I might need it one day, but that day never comes...
But in contrast, my physical workspace is completely empty, I might be a bit schizophrenic.
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> Tabs keep piling up, whether in Chrome, Notepad, or other apps. I don't even know why I still have so much old stuff open, I'm thinking I might need it one day, but that day never comes...
I do this. But every now and then, I have what I call "The Purge", in which the browser window gets closed. There are a few tabs that survive The Purge. One window has [GMail, Calendar] as pinned tabs. Another window has [Gmeet] as a pinned tab. Everyone else is expendable. If they are needed, they will be reopened.
(I do give a little thought to it. "Is there some actually ongoing thing I realistically need to save, and can't reopen?" Those tabs might be pulled off.)
I did this this week. "This will close 437 tabs. Are you sure?" Purged.
If your work doesn't revolve around a web browser, try closing it completely when you try to do work. It might actually feel unsettling to work without having the browser open, almost the same feeling as reaching for the phone to check emails even though you know there are no new ones.
I recently realised I can do 70% of my work with only the terminal open and nothing else. Can get it up to 95% with terminal + single IDE at a time. The last 5% is browser-based, which can get distracting really fast - like HN and youtube rabbit holes.
If you really want to shine a light on the cockroach that is digital hoarding, try nuking your entire browsing history and tabs, delete all your movies/series/games collection. I 'cured' myself of being this kind of hoarder just before covid started and I haven't had the urge to store anything besides some private/precious data. On my one machine I've explicitly set firefox to not remember tabs and to also wipe history/cookies/tmp data on every close. Feel weird the first week but then if you see someone else's browser with 100+ tabs, its like looking at one of those picture of a hoarders car that is filled with trash. I think on some level the brain likes this kind of trash hoarding, some kind of rat behaviour. I jest but I hope you get the picture.
What you could do is just export all open tabs into a list, store that somewhere, and close all. You're not closing them because of anxiety that you'll need them, or because you're feeling bad that you haven't dealt with them, or likely a bit of both. This way, if you really need to, you can get back to them. You won't, but you can.