A tab setup for students: research that stays, distractions that don't

28 September 2026 · 4 min read

Student tabs come in two kinds: sources you need for weeks (papers, Wikipedia, the library catalogue) and things that pull you away (YouTube, feeds). They need opposite treatment.

Keep sources open as long as the essay takes

The Long-haul research workflow gives Wikipedia, arXiv, Google Scholar and other reference sites a week unused before they move to Bin, while everything else follows the usual 3 hours. Add your university's library and course sites to its list in the editor.

Worried about losing one? Save before closing bookmarks every tab just before it closes, so a source is never really gone.

Keep distractions small

Social timeout puts YouTube and social tabs to sleep 20 minutes after you leave them.
A reminder after 20 minutes on YouTube, if you'd rather be told than have it happen.

The same tab strip after WithFew grouped it: collapsed groups named Code, Docs, Research and News, and an open group named "Search: flights to Lisbon". — Grouped for you: Code, Docs, Research and News, and a flight search in a group of its own.

Built into Chrome

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+A finds any open tab by name.
Right-click a tab and Add tab to reading list for articles you'll read later.

WithFew (our extension) is free for 7 days, then $5 a month.