Tabs

There's a workflow style that almost everyone I know follows, though I don't think anyone teaches it: the ebb and flow of browser tabs.

It starts when you bring up a browser window to look up something, or order take-out, or do one of a hundred things. But then you see a useful link and you bring that up in a new tab so you can come back to it later. And then another. And another.

Soon, you have so many browser tabs, it's hard to find the ones you need. You have tabs open for things you can't remember. Half of them are requests for a password because your session has expired. My old boss, H., used to have hundreds open at a time and every time he wanted to show me something, I had to wait as he clicked through the most likely candidates until he found the one he wanted or gave up and opened it again.

Eventually, it ends. Either the browser or your brain crashes — you realize you're never going to get around to looking at them all, and if they're that important you'll look them up again.

So you go through and close everything you don't recognize, close fourteen tabs that are showing the same login request, and maybe even close that second window that has all the overflow tabs. And you breathe a sigh of relief because suddenly your browser and your entire life seem manageable again.

But then you see a useful link, and you bring it up in another tab so you can come back to it later...

Obligatory Photo

This birdbath in my neighborhood is often red. I looked up why that might be happening, and now I have three tabs open with information on bird baths and Haematococcus pluvialis.