Bookmarks intended to save you time, but can become distractions

Bookmarks are some URL shortcuts usually located under the address bar of your browser that are meant to help you visit a certain page easier later on. You might not be able to watch the whole video that a friend has sent to you right now, but you plan to keep it somewhere where it will be easy enough for you to watch it during your work break. You might not be in the right mood to read that five page article about a new technology that has been launched recently, but you intend to read it later on. These are times when bookmarks come in hand.

However, having the bookmark bar shown under your address bar the whole time you are working and open the browser to work, you might get distracted very easily, simply because you might have difficulties figuring out the solution to the problem you are currently dealing with, and switching your attention to something less mental draining is a compelling thing. It is normal to have difficulties here and there while working on a new task, despite having a lot of past experiences and a lot of skill off your sleeves, but this does not mean that going to that video that you bookmarked a few days ago should be done right now.

A solution to this problem can be hiding the bookmark bar while you are working and have some guilt-free time after you have finished working on your most important tasks and spend some time entertaining with the content that you have bookmarked.

It can be a bit surprising that such thing as the bookmark bar which was meant to help you become productive can easily become a source of distraction where you might waste a lot of time, simply because you are working out of your comfort zone.

It is a bit ironic that while I was writing this article in my brother’s laptop in the Evernote web application, I accidentally moved the mouse pad and pressed a page that my brother had bookmarked earlier.