Browser Bliss: Productivity-Boosting Organization

Organizing your Chrome browser takes a bit of initial setup — but it’s well worth it for day to day processes. 🪅

I’ve become addicted to organizing my browser to stay focused. This is a quick list of the best tools / tips that I’ve found so far.

Extensions

Toast — Link (Free — can pay but no real reason to)

I commonly have many tabs to discuss during meetings, and often those meetings can get rescheduled. So — when I’m preparing for a meeting I’ll save all my tabs to a folder with the meeting name to reopen when I need later. When I’m done with the tabs, I’ll delete the folder and repeat!

Toast also comes in handy for saving tabs that are needed for specific repeated workflows. Toast takes away the need to restore all your pages.

Pin the extension to your toolbar, click and open up all your tabs for your task in a new window

Bookmarks Bar Switcher — Link

This is my favorite tool, I am a big fan of using folders to organize, but having the ability to toggle between bookmark tabs is a game changer.

It takes a second to setup, and you have to work around not (technically) being able to save the same exact link to multiple bookmark bars (but as a work around you can save a different page — ex if you want YouTube on both bookmark bars, save a different video etc).

If you have multiple workstreams / business units with many different apps, this can give you multiple bookmark bars by task.

If you’ve ever wanted more than one bookmarks bar — this tool is amazing (and free). Pin the extension to your toolbar, and read the quick setup inscrutions in the Chrome Web store and you’re set.

Momentum — Link

Every new tab you open will have a motivational quote and time. It’s pretty 🎉 (Free — no real reason to pay but can integrate tools like Asana or task managers if you want)

Merlin — Link

Use ctrl + m to pull up an interface that connects to chatGPT to quickly access AI

Merlin can be brought up with ctrl + m — it can be a little buggy but overall pretty useful in some cases!

Non Extension Hacks (4 quick tips)

There are also a few features that don’t require any extensions, but make work life easier.

• Rename your bookmarks to remove the text and leave only the icon (ex Calendar, Gmail, YouTube)

Remove the title when saving bookmarks for sites with icons you are familiar with to save room.

• Section things off name one of your tabs “ | “ to add a line — not everyone will love this one, but I like the visual break in sectioning off apps

I cry a little bit every time I see the Gmail icon with “Gmail” taking up space next to it 💔😅

• Group tabs while working — this is an easy way to remove (or hide) tab clutter

Right click on any tab > go to Add tab to group and create groups. You can then drag tabs into a group, open and close the groups based on what you need to focus on

• Pin tabs that you use all day (like email / calendars for quick access). The tabs will take up less space, but still be around and ready!