4 ways to become more productive with Chrome Browser
We are spending hundred of hours in front of our monitors. When we do so, more often than not, we are spending time with our browser. Being efficient with how you use your browser can mean saving time, avoiding frustration and being more productive. I use Chrome desktop browser. I am sharing my 4 tips to make Chrome browser productive for everyday use:
- Pin tabs
- Search tabs
- Previous tabs
- Bookmark tabs
Pin Tabs
Chrome allows you to pin a tab. When you pin a tab, the tab gets pinned at the start of tab bar. I use pin tabs to pin my email tab, calendar tab, Google Drive tab and my to-do list app. Once you pin a tab, the tab remained pinned whenever you re-launch Chrome browser. Before I was using pin tab, I had to hunt for email and calendar tabs in 100+ open tabs. Now by pinning tabs, they always appear at a fixed slot and are easier to find. Additionally, you may also discipline yourself to open only one instance of pinned tab. E.g. with pinned tabs, I now have a single tab for email, single tab for calendar and so on. This further reduces clutter and avoids duplicate tabs. One additional benefit of pinning tabs is that if you click on any link from any of the pinned tab, you know where the link would open. It would be the first tab after all your pinned tabs! I highly recommend using ‘pin tab’ functionality,. You would see a remarkable improvement in your tab navigation experience.
To pin a tab, right click on the tab, and you would see the option to pin the tab.
Search tabs:
Early this year, Chrome launched search tabs functionality. If you are like me and have 100s of tabs open at any time, you can use Search tabs functionality to find open of the open tabs. You can also use this feature to close un-wanted tabs by clicking the cross sign against a given entry.
On mac you can launch Search tabs by hitting, Command + A + Shift button or by just clicking on the down arrow from the top right location
I also find ‘Switch to this tab’ functionality pretty handy. We often end up opening multiple tabs of same sites. Switch to this tab prompts you to switch to an already opened tab of the site rather than opening a duplicate tab.
Previous Tabs
When working, I repeatedly find my self toggling between two tabs. For example, it could be toggling between between a sheet and a deck or a deck or email or Google Search tab or doc. Previous tab functionality allows you to easily toggle between two tabs. This is not a native functionality in Chrome. You can use a nifty Chrome extension call ‘Previous Tabs’ for this functionality. You can also configure your preferred shortcut keys for jumping between tabs.
Bookmark Tab
Chrome has had bookmark tab functionality since ages. This year in addition to ‘Add to Bookmark’, Chrome has also added a new functionality called ‘Add to Reading List’. However I much prefer a Chrome extension called Pocket to bookmark a tab to read later. Before calling it a day, I go through open tabs and find articles that I can move to Pocket and close them from my desktop browser. Pocket has an Android and an iOS app. It also has a text to speech feature which enables you to listen to the article when one the go. I find it is much better to read article through Pocket rather than keeping them opened ‘forever’ on my desktop browser.
If you haven’t tried these features, do try them out on Chrome Browser or on your favourite browser. As compared to before, these tips have brought a lot of sanity to my daily work. If you find these useful or have a question or have any of your tip to share, please do leave a comment below.
