How Many Tabs Do You Have Open?

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Sorry! I was counting the number of tabs I had open on my browser, and it took three lines of ellipses to arrive at 24. That’s two dozen — the number of eggs one should consume over the course of a week according to an acupuncturist who told me I should eat two dozen eggs a week (I’m not listening). Also the number of hours in a day, the title of a very popular television show and a multiple of the number 6, which, twice more is also the number of the beast, referring specifically to the book of revelation and less specifically to the book of burn out, technology detoxification and the harsh reality that we are not capable of multitasking. Period. Point blank. We just can’t do it.

We’re now up to 25 open tabs because I had to Google 666 to make sure I was right about the book of revelation. (I was.)

I can expound upon which tabs are open: one for Business of Fashion, two for the New York Times, one for Hairpin, three for e-commerce sites (I should absolutely buy this top, right?), a couple shared Excel documents, my calendar and four — I don’t know why — for various e-mails which I will probably close out, thus forgetting to reply and falling into an abyss of missed connections I will no doubt later regret.*

And see, that’s the thing: I’m conditioning myself to fail. To forget what I’m doing and to think that’s okay. I haven’t spent longer than, like, 3-5 seconds in any of the tabs that are open. I googled “brunch man repeller” earlier this morning because I was looking for old stories we’ve written on the topic and haven’t revisited the tab since. There’s a Seamless tab open because I want to order breakfast. Well, wanted to order breakfast; at the time of this writing, it is 12:27 p.m. And speaking of writing, I can’t even keep this tab open. If I’m being really honest, I feel like the browser has become a metaphor for the brain, and the tabs are the manifold thoughts that come in and go out faster than an opinion can be formulated. So here’s what I’m going to do: commit to no more than five tabs open with the hope of bringing that down slowly but surely to one at a time so that the next time this comes up, there’s more substance, less anxiety at the finish line. Then we can talk about it because that’s what people do when they’re focused.

Before all of that though, state the following:

+How many tabs you have open

+How many tabs you’d like to have open

+What you’re going to do to get there

Bye!

Collage by Krista Anna Lewis

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