Stop managing your tabs. Remove them.

This is a quick post about something counterintuitive I discovered about focus and distractions.

Focusing is hard when you have options

Like most people working remotely, I've struggled with focus. I'd sit down to work on one task, and 20 minutes later I'd have 15 tabs open — Reddit, YouTube, Twitter. Every productivity tool I tried had the same flaw: it assumed I had willpower. "Block distracting sites." I'd just unblock them. "Use a tab limiter." I'd dismiss the warning. The tools were fighting my behavior instead of removing the option entirely.

A counterintuitive approach

So I tried something extreme: instead of managing my tabs, I removed them. I locked my browser to a single URL. Not "warned about other tabs." Not "reminded to stay focused." Literally unable to open anything else.

It felt almost claustrophobic at first. Like putting on a straightjacket. My first instinct was to fight it — I kept trying to open new tabs out of habit, and nothing happened. It was frustrating.

But then something interesting kicked in, very similar to the "do nothing" Pomodoro approach. When you can't get distracted, there's no time dilation. On YouTube, 10 minutes feels like 2. When you're locked to your work tab, 10 minutes feels like 10 minutes. You don't lose entire afternoons without realizing it.

And just like choosing between "work or do nothing," when your only option is "work on this one thing or stare at it," you eventually just... work on it. The mental energy you normally spend resisting the urge to open a new tab becomes available for actual thinking.

Why this works better than blocking

Site blockers treat the symptom. You block Reddit, so you go to Twitter. You block Twitter, so you go to Hacker News. It's whack-a-mole.
Removing tabs entirely treats the cause. There's nowhere to go. The decision is made for you. And that's the key insight — the most productive decision is the one you don't have to make.

I've been using this method for months now. Deep work sessions went from 20 minutes to 2+ hours. Not because I became more disciplined, but because I removed the need for discipline.

I actually ended up building a small Chrome extension to make this seamless for myself — you lock to a URL, work, and unlock when you're done. If anyone's curious I can share the link, but honestly the approach matters more than the tool. You could even do it manually by closing everything and disconnecting from Wi-Fi on every other app.

The takeaway: Don't fight distractions. Make them impossible. Try it for one work session and see what happens.