I’ve had so many things bookmarked in my favorites bar for so long that I’ve started ignoring them. This, of course, negates the benefits of having favorite sites bookmarked. I suppose at one point or another, these links were important. Links bookmarked to read later. Maybe even the result of some research, a curated list of carefully selected sites to review in more detail. In one folder I found a cache of recipes. I recognized some of the recipes as “winners” and others as “wish list” dishes.
The point being that without a conscious decision to revisit our digital caches, they have a tendency to pile up and become obsolete and outdated. Something that was useful ends up becoming junky, digital clutter. Though I see my favorites every time I open a browser, likely dozens of times a day, somehow this doesn’t make them more prominent. If anything, seeing them constantly makes them recede into the background, except for the three I rely on often. It reminded me of something I heard once about putting up signs. A friend of mine disliked using signs to communicate because they quickly become irrelevant. At the time, I vehemently disagreed, but now I see his point. When you pass by something everyday, you stop noticing it, even if it’s useful to you.
In any event, I don’t use about 90% of the bookmarks. And the way I have them organized in my favorites, it’s unlikely I would even notice the ones I might need. I have folders and subfolders of favorites on my bookmark bar. As soon as this realization occurred to me, naturally I had to start purging them. I wiped entire folders with barely a second glance. Many of the links dated back to 2013(!).
My list of favorited bookmarks is so long it extends past the browser bar. Yet another reason why so many gems were being forgotten and overlooked. I even uncovered one treasure that I had desperately searched for months ago. It’s for an obscure YouTube video. No matter how I searched, I couldn’t find this video. The whole time it was tucked away at the bottom of my auxiliary favorites list.
As with other purging projects, time for me to revisit some of my tips and tricks. Review digital caches on a routine basis. Start small, start easy.
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