Organize Your Growing Set of Browser Tabs

During both of my last two online coaching sessions, my client has asked me about the way I have setup my own web browser, Firefox.

Specifically, they wanted to know how I could have over 20 open Tabs at once and still remain sane. The ability to have multiple pages in your browser be seen as Tabs instead of unique windows has been in Firefox for a few years and came to Internet Explorer and Safari more recently.  Each Tab indicates a unique web page and with all of the various on-demand apps, sites, and pages I make use of, having 20 open pages seems to be the rule nowadays, not the exception.

Tree Style Tab for Firefox

Tree Style Tab Add-On for Firefox

I am one of those people who “get’s nervous” — my words — when I have many things open and cannot easily discern or navigate them. This is why I moved to the Mac and this is why prior to this Add-On I would only have as many Tabs as I could horizontally stack and still read, usually about 4-7, depending on page titles.

So, try this in your Firefox and let me know how it helps you.

Tree Style Tab Add-On for Firefox.

Additionally, here are a few additional tips for Firefox:

  • By default, the Tab bar will be organized horizontally at the top like Firefox does without it. Change it to organize them vertically to get the productivity gain.
  • When you have multiple tabs open, the first 10 are attached to keyboard shortcuts CTRL/+0 through CTRL/+9 so you can move between the tabs quickly.
  • When you want to navigate Tabs in context rather than by number, you can use CTRL-TAB and CTRL-SHIFT-TAB for next Tab and previous Tab respectively.
  • Now that you can handle many pages as Tabs at a glance, you might consider bookmarking an entire set of pages as Tabs such as “Shopping” instead of just Amazon.com or WhatSheBuys.com.

Your Inbox = Re: Re: Fwd: Re: New Website Project – Huh?

We’ve all seen our email inbox explode as a project starts out and all the team gets going. Your inbox starts to look something like this soon after the project begins:

Re: New Website Project
Re: Fwd: New Website Project
Re: New Website Project
Re: Re: Fwd: New Website Project
Re: Call Your Mother
Re: New Website Project
Re: Re: Fwd: Re: New Website Project
Re: Fwd: Re: New Website Project
Offer: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug

And this is just the first 30 minutes! In my experience, using email for this sort of communication is the norm. All the information and data related to the project is sent via email:

  • Questions related to the project
  • Updates on the status of the project
  • Attached documents related to the project
  • Deadlines for the project
  • Reference materials for the project

(more…)