I’ve always been the kind of person who struggles to close browser tabs. My tab bar often resembled a never-ending ‘to-do someday’ list, cluttered with articles and links I promised to read later... but rarely did. This habit became a recurring issue, surfacing more frequently than I would prefer.
The frustration has only grown in today’s ocean of endless content and user-friendly publishing platforms. My need to keep tabs open stemmed from a fear of losing valuable information—if I closed a tab, I needed assurance I could find it again. Easily.
My first serious attempt at dealing with this frustration was with a bookmark management tool called Raindrop. It’s a competent tool—and one I still use for various bookmarking needs—but it didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t the real workflow/solution I wanted. That’s when I discovered Reader by Readwise.
Readwise was a revelation. I could add a page to my ‘read later’ queue with a single click, which I’d process in Readwise’s mobile or web app. This step added a critical review phase, allowing me to sort my list into ‘reference bookmarks’ or ‘must-read’ items. The latter made it to a special ‘read later’ list, from which Readwise occasionally delivers digests of previously flagged content to my phone.
These days, my ‘open tab’ count is regularly in single digits. The guilt over unread articles has significantly reduced, and I enjoy a curated reading list with a high signal-to-noise ratio. This system has not only decluttered my browser but also brought peace of mind and efficiency to my digital reading habits.