Too many tabs open
How do you cope when life gets all a bit too much?
You sit down at your computer, ready to get on with something important, and before you know it, there are 17 tabs open. One for emails, another for your to-do list, a few bits of research, that half-watched video from earlier, an online shop you forgot about, and something you’ve been meaning to read for weeks. It’s cluttered, distracting, and quite frankly, a bit overwhelming.
Does this sound familiar to you?
Now imagine those tabs are parts of your life – work projects, family responsibilities, social commitments, errands, the never ending admin of life. Most of us are walking around with too many mental tabs open, juggling everything and feeling permanently on the back foot or chasing our tail. It’s exhausting and to be honest, it’s doing us no favours, it’s counter productive.
So what is going on and what can we do about it?
What’s going on upstairs in our heads?
So I’m just going to put this out there – multitasking doesn’t work. What we call multitasking is actually just task switching. The brain isn’t doing two things at once, it’s frantically jumping between them and each time it switches, it uses up a bit more mental energy.
Believe it or not, our brains are not wired to multitask well. When we try, we make more mistakes, and we work more slowly. The American Psychological Association backs this up with research (https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking) that points out that switching between tasks can knock as much as 40% off your productivity. That’s a big chunk of your day, gone. Imagine what you could get done with that extra 40%!
Then there’s the stress side of things. All this switching activates the brain’s stress response which means you get a spike in cortisol, which in turn messes with your ability to concentrate and make decisions. Over time, this can leave you feeling anxious, drained, and mentally foggy. It’s not just inefficient, it’s unsustainable.
It’s heavy but invisible
Even when we’re not physically doing anything, our brains are often ticking away with the ‘mental load’. This is all the stuff you have to remember and manage such as birthdays, appointments, meal planning, bills, school events, replying to messages, sorting the car MOT. The list goes on an sometimes feels like it will never end. And of course, it won’t, because we continually add to it everyday.
It’s a quiet kind of pressure, but it adds up. And while anyone can experience it, research shows women, particularly mums, often carry the bulk of it in households. The result of this is a constant hum of responsibility running in the background, eating into your headspace.
So, what can you do about it?
If your brain feels like a cluttered desktop computer with too many tabs open, here are a few things you can try and some practical ways to clear the mental decks and get a bit of headspace back. I personally use the Eisenhower Matrix and encourage my clients to use it too.
- Do a brain dump
Get it all out. Write everything down, from the big stuff to the tiny niggly jobs that need to be done. It doesn’t need to be neat or ordered. Just scribble it all onto a page (or type it out if that’s more your thing).
The act of getting it out of your head and in front of you helps massively. It frees up mental processing space and gives you something you can actually work with, rather than a foggy list of things you keep half-remembering at 3am when you are trying your best to sleep. In actual fact, having a notepad by the side of your bed to write things down at 3am is really helpful, because it means that you don’t have to worry that you will forget something when you wake up – it’s on the notepad!
- Use the Eisenhower matrix
This is a brilliant little tool for sorting your list. You split tasks into four categories:
- Urgent and important – do these first.
- Important but not urgent – schedule a time to do them.
- Urgent but not important – delegate if you can.
- Neither urgent nor important – bin them. Seriously, they aren’t worth your time and effort.
It helps you stop reacting to every little thing and start making decisions based on what actually matters.
- Stop trying to do everything
We can only properly focus on a handful of things at once. Trying to do it all just leads to doing everything badly. So choose two or three top priorities for the day and focus on doing those well. Let the rest wait.
Give yourself permission to not do it all today. That’s not laziness, it’s being smart.
- Batch tasks together
If you’ve got similar jobs to do such as answering emails, making phone calls, running errands, then batch them together. Your brain doesn’t have to keep switching gears, which makes the whole thing less tiring and more efficient. You can also block time in your diary for specific tasks. Treat these time blocks like appointments with yourself. Don’t let other things creep in – focus on just those tasks for that designated time slot.
- Learn to say no
This one’s hard and easier said than done, but it’s vital. Every time you say “yes” to something, you’re saying “no” to something else and this is often at a cost to you, usually your own peace of mind. Be honest about what you can take on. If something doesn’t fit your priorities or schedule, it’s okay to politely decline. Try saying: “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m at capacity at the moment” or “That sounds great, but I can’t commit right now.”
- Clean up your digital life
Let’s not forget the literal tabs in your digital world. Clean up your computer workspace, close the things you’re not actively using, turn off unnecessary notifications and use apps or focus settings to stop distractions taking over your day.
Having a tidy desktop or phone screen and work station, can make a surprising difference to how overwhelmed you feel.
Make space to think and practice self-care
When we stop trying to do everything all at once, we actually become more productive and more present. Giving yourself some breathing room isn’t lazy, it’s necessary. It’s in those quiet gaps that we reflect, get creative, and remember who we are outside the hustle and bustle of daily life. Go for a walk without your phone. Stare out the window. Let your mind wander. These moments aren’t wasted….. they’re restorative.
We live in a world that idolises being busy, like it’s important to be busy, like you gain more respect by being busy. But who are you being busy for? Is it you? Or is it for others? There’s nothing heroic about burning out. The truth is, being focused is powerful. Finding clarity is remarkably freeing. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is to close a few tabs.
So, take a breath, write it all down and choose what actually matters today. Give yourself permission to not do it all at once, because you’re not a machine and even your computer works faster and more efficiently with fewer tabs open.
Hayley McAuley
Psychotherapist