The Weight of an Open Tab

Some tabs I close without thinking. Others sit there for days.

It’s not just the browser kind — though those can be their own quiet weight — it’s also the mental ones: the half-finished report, the email I keep meaning to reply to, the small decision I’ve been putting off because I need “just a little more time” to think about it.

They’re all open somewhere in the background, quietly pulling at my attention.

When you work from home, those tabs are harder to escape. There’s no commute to clear the mind, no change of scenery to signal, this part is done. Instead, they follow you into the kitchen, into dinner, and into the few quiet minutes before bed.

Sometimes I realize I’ve spent an entire evening not actually relaxing — just moving those open tabs from one part of my brain to another.

A while ago, I started making it a point to close as many as I could before ending the day. Not perfectly, not all at once, but enough so that when I walk away from my desk, I’m not carrying a dozen loose ends with me.

One of the most useful methods I’ve found comes from David Allen’s Getting Things Done: the 2-minute rule. If something will take less than two minutes (or five, if I have a bit more time), I do it immediately.

For me, that can mean:

• Replying to the quick message now instead of letting it sit overnight.
• Tagging and assigning a bug report to the right team as soon as I see it.
• Closing out a resolved incident in our system before moving to the next.
• Adding missing context or a reproduction step to a ticket so no one has to chase it later.

Others are bigger, and they stay open longer. But I’ve learned to either give them a dedicated spot in my notebook or make peace with letting them go.

Those small wins remove far more mental weight than their size suggests.

The thing about open tabs — whether on a screen or in your mind — is that they take up space even when you’re not actively looking at them. They’re background noise that makes it harder to be fully present in whatever you’re actually doing.

Closing them doesn’t just tidy up your workday; it lightens the evening that comes after.

Now, when I finish for the day, I try to leave my screen with only what I need tomorrow. My desk looks a little clearer. My head does too.

It’s not a perfect habit. Some days I still carry more tabs than I’d like. But when I manage to close just a few more than I open — especially using the 2-minute rule — the rest of the day feels lighter.

And that’s worth it.

See You Soon