PP 331: The Three Tab Challenge

Take a moment and look at your web browser.

How many tabs do you have open?

Today I am issuing the Three Tab Challenge!

 

Highlights:

00:41 When Multiple Tabs Cause Problems
02:39 When Multiple Tabs Are Okay
04:19 The Benefits of Closing Your Tabs

Take a moment and look at your web browser. How many tabs do you have open? Today, @thekimsutton is issuing the Three Tab Challenge! Listen at https://thekimsutton.com/pp331 #positiveproductivity #podcast #ThreeTabChallenge #focus #productivitytips Click To Tweet

Inspirational Quotes:

03:58 “Don’t allow yourself to be at the beck and call of your email service provider.” -Kim Sutton

04:19 “On the days when I only have a limited number of tabs, I am so much more productive.” -Kim Sutton

Episode Transcription

Kim Sutton: Today, I’m issuing you a challenge. And before I jump into what the challenge is, if you’re on your desktop or on your laptop, I want you to look at your browser window and count how many tabs you have open. If you’re anything like me, you definitely have more than one. In fact, you might have multiple windows with multiple tabs. 

Now, I don’t go so far. But on my MacBook at this present time, I have one window open with eight chrome tabs. Before I get into what the challenge is, though, here’s the problem with having so many tabs open. Let’s start with the basics. Having all these tabs open is pulling from the bandwidth on my computer. As I go through the day, when I have multiple tabs open, and by multiple, I usually have more than eight. I noticed that my computer is getting slower and slower. It drives me crazy. Also, at this present moment, I have opened Libsyn for my podcast stats, I have Facebook, I have my email, I have my Focuster which helps me keep track of my tasks for the day. And then I have several other tabs that I don’t even need open. But the problem with all these open tabs is that I get easily distracted. For example on Libsyn, I’ll go and look at what my podcast stats are. And if I leave the tab open, then chances are I’ll look again at another half hour, an hour. I don’t need to do this. In fact, I don’t even need to look once a day. So I am going to close that tab right now. While I’m at it, I’m going to close a couple more. I just don’t need them. And then there’s the Facebook tab. 

Now, I don’t want to be judged for still being on Facebook. That’s a discussion that you can have somewhere else. However, I don’t need Facebook open all the time. I start noticing the little ticker at the top telling me how many new notifications I have, and it seems to be screaming my name. Kim, Kim, come look at me, look at me, see what people are posting on Facebook. Nope, don’t need it, closed tab. There are times, however, that I’m working on a client project and I need a whole bunch of tabs open. Because if I don’t have them all open, then I have to keep on reopening them to get the information that I need. In those times, multiple tabs are okay. But this leads me to today’s challenge. I want to give you the three tab challenge. One tab will be one tab. If you don’t already have it, one tab is a free browser extension. I have it on Chrome. I don’t know if it’s available on any other browsers. However, it compresses all open tabs into one tab. When I use one tab, I instantly see my computer running a lot faster, and I’m focusing on only the tabs that I need to see. But one tab has saved the whole list of all the open tabs that I had on one convenient tab. And then I’m going to challenge myself to only have open to other tabs. I know you may be wondering, well, what about my email? I need to know if a new email comes in? 

Well, actually you don’t. Ideally, you would be scheduling time into your day to be checking your email rather than checking it constantly and whenever you see a pop up. So close your email tab, schedule into your calendar and don’t allow yourself to be at the beck and call of your email service provider. For those sites that you find yourself frequenting on a daily basis, if not more than one today, then add them as a favorite so they’re easy to visit, but so that you don’t feel compelled to leave them open all the time. On the days when I only have open a limited number of tabs, I can tell you that I am so much more productive than on the days when I have 20 or 30 tabs open. 

I would love to hear from you if you are one of those people who constantly is being battled by the tabs. And if you are, I invite you to go to my website at thekimsutton.com/pp331 and leave a comment at the bottom of the page. 

So are you going to join me on a three tap challenge? If so, I want you to join me over there too and just leave a comment, letting me know that you’re in. Now with all this said, go forth and make it a positive and productive day.