So you’re a busy person and you don’t always have time to act on something immediately. Or you have to wait until the next billing cycle to afford something. Daily life comes at you like a Russian missile, so you need to leave reminders around so that you don’t forget. For me, those reminders often take the form of tabs. On my browser I leave at least a dozen tabs open to remind me of things—I’ve got to get those cartons ready for mailing to recycle; thanks for reminding me. I actually look forward to being able to click a tab closed because that means I accomplished something. There are so many things to do and time is so rare. Then the inevitable happened.
I was leading a Zoom meeting and I had to keep track of attendance. Since I was leading I didn’t want to stop in the middle and write a bunch of names down, so I took a screenshot. My poor laptop got confused and kept the screenshot on top. Since the screen shot showed all the open windows (it’s not just the browser that’s open, but all the writing projects in the two different programs I use as well, all in various stages of completion), I couldn’t tell how to click out of the screenshot. I couldn’t see the actual Zoom meeting or if someone was raising her or his hand. I tried to keep the discussion going while trying to get Zoom back to the front. I began clicking any window shut that I could. Finally Zoom reemerged.
After the meeting I had to examine the carnage. My browser had been closed and when I reopened it, the option to restore all closed tabs from the last session was grayed out. I would have to rebuild my tabs from memory. It was because of my overwrought memory that I’d kept those tabs open in the first place! Before going corporate, when I could take my time and pay attention, I had a very good memory for things like this. (As a professor I had time to act on things during the day instead of constantly thinking “I’ve got to get back to work.”) Now too much is happening all the time. I’m having Zoom meetings after work when I normally get my day to day business done. So I’ve added a new task to all the others—trying to reconstruct my lost tabs. Yes, it’s a classic “first world problem.” At least that’s what I think it’s called—let me open a new tab and check.
