Every day when I return from lunch, I have a ritual.

I log back into my computer, check my emails, then close Chrome, saying farewell to every tab open within it.

It’s a thrilling experience. I’m free. I’m at tab zero. It doesn’t matter what tabs I may have lost, because I can always find them again.

At this point in the day my tab count ranges from 18 to 43.


A few desks over, Chris has 52 tabs open. Next to me, Laura has 33 tabs open in one window, 15 in another.

My tabs are always a mix of work-related things – the CMS, articles I’m editing, Trello, analytics – social media, and articles I fully intend to read when I have a spare moment, you know, for fun. A lot of those articles go unread, but there’s still a reluctance to close them. It feels like I’m admitting failure, that I’ve let that longread down.



There’s a strange guilt associated with closing tabs, and a guilt for having so many open. It feels cluttered and unorganised.

So why do so many of us fall into the tab trap? And why is it so difficult to revert back to a life of only having one window at a time?

Tab-hoarding happens for the same reason we attempt to multi-task, or we scroll Twitter when we’re watching TV: We like to have multiple stimuli available at all times.

It’s a protection against boredom. We open a new tab of fun, or information, or as a means of productivity, and we feel like we’re doing something, whether that’s enjoyable or for work purposes. We get rewarded with online content, so we keep doing it… until we notice we’ve got so many tabs open we can’t even see what each one is.

The problem is that we overestimate what our brains are capable of.

People tend to believe they’re good at multi-tasking, that they really can pay attention to multiple things at once and get a load of work done. But that isn’t the case.

Rather than multi-tasking, we task-switch, moving from thing to thing and experiencing a dip in concentration each time. Multi-tasking is a way for us to avoid deep focus and thought. We can look at lots of things fleetingly and tell ourselves we’re being productive, but the truth is that focusing on one thing would likely result in better outcomes.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Having a bunch of tabs open is a digital way of us task-switching, and it’s the ultimate form of distraction. We may think that while we’re focused on one tab, we can block out all the others that are open. But in truth they’re still there, in the corner of our eye and taking up mental energy.

Dr Daria Kuss, the course leader of Cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Having lots of tabs open can potentially result in information overload – whereby multitasking is requested, which may be difficult to handle by the human brain, and rather than creating efficiency, switching frequently between tasks may lead to short attention spans and a lack of depth in the ongoing tasks.’

Have a look at how frequently you switch tabs when you have a load open.

I’ll quickly ditch the tab I’m working on to check another flashing with a notification, then find myself having a look at what’s going on over on Twitter, then open some more tabs when I spot things I want to read, before finally returning to my working tab, my ‘flow’ shattered.



You might be doing the same. That’s the sort of task-switching behaviour having a bunch of tabs open promotes.

But not all tabs are distraction, I hear you cry. You need all of these to reference. That’s entirely valid.

Dr Kuss notes that there are two opposing reasons we keep loads of tabs open: to be efficient and ‘create a multi-source and multi-topic context for the task at hand’, or as a form of procrastination, ‘the additional online article to read, one more video to watch’.

A problem many tab-hoarders face is the blurring of those two purposes. You might have a bunch of tabs you actually need, a lot you don’t, and soon the number is so immense that you can’t tell the difference between the two.

There’s a reason we’re reluctant to close our tabs and only have the ones we definitely, clearly need: FOMO.

‘People are scared of missing out on any information so keep tabs open,’ says Professor Mike Berry, a psychologist at Birmingham City University. ‘It is a case of “I might miss something ” if I close a tab.’

In a sense, the tabs know this. That’s why notifications are visible just in the little tab icon, to get you to look that that tab and resist closing it in case you miss out.

Right now, I can see there’s newness on Trello, on Twitter, and on Slack. It’s hard to resist looking – what if everyone else is discussing something important and I’m left out?


Racking up the tabs and clicking between them doesn’t just put your computer at risk of slowing down, it could also lead to informational overload, building up tiny scraps of stress until you feel completely overwhelmed.

Marc Hekster, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at The Summit Clinic, explains: ‘Our computers/phones have become an extension of our brain. They have become an adjunct to our memory, or our creative source.

‘The tabs are another version of our working memory. We treat our computers as if they have an unlimited capacity, just like we treat our brain.

‘But when we overload our brain, we become tired, forgetful, irritable. When we overload tabs, the page slows down, and the computer/phone may be less efficient.

‘[When] we forget to close tabs, they use up our working memory.

‘Keep the tab open, it will always be there. So we see a certain emotional greed, an underestimating of our own (and our computer’s) limitations.’

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

So having lots of tabs open might be bad for us in more ways than attracting criticism from our deskmates. How can we get rid of the sense of failure and guilt in closing a tab, and declutter our windows?

The most important thing: You must be realistic about what your brain is capable of.

No matter how skilled a multi-tasker you may think you are, there is no way you can properly focus on 50 things at once – and so there is no way you can pay attention to that number of tabs.


Recognise that you cannot read everything on the internet or be updated on all things. Striving to scroll back to the last tweet you saw is a fruitless task, and being ‘updated’ is a myth. You will miss stuff. If it’s important, it’ll come back around, someone will send it to you directly, or – thanks to those annoying algorithm changes that hate chronological feeds – it’ll be at the top of your feed the next time you log on.

Do not feel like a failure for admitting that you’ll never finish that longread or seeing the four generations meme (which is a delight, FYI) later than other people on the internet. You are a human, not an information processor. You have limits on both your time and your brain capacity.

Accepting this new worldview will free you from ‘guilt’ tabs – those tabs that you keep open because you feel like you ‘should’. Close them and feel the freedom.

Then it’s time to tackle procrastination tabs, the ones that distract you from what you’re working on with their enticing notifications and the promise of new and exciting things. These require more drastic action.

When you know you need to focus on one particular task, close every single tab that isn’t related to it. Close any that you aren’t actively using for the purposes of said task. Do it now.

Again, you’ll need to process feelings of FOMO. Try to remember that your notifications and your feed will still be there once you’ve finished your work. They do not have a time limit. You can see them later. But clearing the tab is a way to get rid of that visual temptation.

Rather than having tabs open as an option for procrastination, realise that it’s really not that difficult to open a new tab for Twitter or Instagram when you’re ready to focus on that fully. Your browser probably remembers what you type, so you only have to put in the first letter of the site. Or you can bookmark your favourite procrastination zones. It’s really not that much work to open a fresh tab rather than leaving a bunch of cluttered ones dormant and waiting for your return.

Essentially, it’s worth taking a Marie Kondo approach, and asking yourself with each tab: is this serving a purpose? Is this sparking joy?

If it’s doing neither right in this moment, close it. It’s not gone forever.

Finally, embrace new ways of keeping tabs on stuff you plan to read later. Faima will Slack herself links of things she wants to read later to avoid having a cluttered window. I’ve started putting links into an email then sending it to myself so I can read the articles on my way home.

Be exorcised of excess tabs and feel smug at having only the ones you need. Embrace the freedom of window minimalism. Close your tabs.

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