Want to reduce fatigue and increase productivity? Here’s how!

How do you stay productive online? It’s one of the most challenging aspects of modern-day working life. There are so many options. Dozens of social platforms, hundreds of SaaS tools, thousands of resources. KPI, documents to check, consult, and keep track of. How do we manage it all? Here’s our solution to this ongoing productivity challenge.

The main productivity challenge: decision fatigue

It all leads to decision fatigue, a well-known psychological phenomenon. We’ve first discovered it in the justice system. It points to the fact that it’s more difficult to get parole when you appear before a judge later in the day. If you’re the first inmate on the schedule, the judge will find it easier to empathize with your situation. This isn’t fair, of course, but there you have it: we tire when we must make a decision. Request denied.

Educators discovered it in children, and they called it After School Restraint Collapse. Those tantrums they throw when they finally come home after a long day at school or in daycare? It’s what you’d expect when they have been on their best behavior. All this self-control tired them out, and that’s only human.

We mention all this because it also applies to software and to the online world. At least, according to Dan and Louis-Xavier from Growth Design. They study the most popular SaaS solutions and dissect them into actionable advice. All UI experts or app designers will love their work. What do they promote? Reducing the cognitive load to prevent users from canceling an app, a website, or a service. Make it simple and snappy. That’s why the Internet works and feels like it does.

The minimalist solution: Google

So, how do you win the battle for online productivity? Google knows best. We’ve written about it before, and it bears remembering. You can see it best when you look at one of their direct competitors, back in the nineteen nineties: Yahoo!

Their solution to information overload? A detailed system of categories. Informative, sure, but also overwhelming. Compare this to the start page Google presented, and you’ll understand their edge immediately. Less choice. More users. More productivity.

There’s one problem here: when you use Google, you hand over control of your online destiny to a third party. They control the data. And the money. It’s their monopoly and even though there’s a good reason for this to happen, it also raises questions.

Like this one: what if you want to take back control? Where do go you if you want to decide, instead of leaving your decisions up to an opaque AI-guided system?

The personal solution: start.me

This is where start.me shines bright. With us, you control the first page you see when you fire up your browser. You, and only you, decide which bookmarks you want to see there. One page, one bookmark widget, one bookmark. It couldn’t be simpler.

The bookmarks widget comes with a lot of other options. You can change colors and sort order. Display bookmarks as a list, in icons or cloud view. You can share them with friends or the world, or keep them private. Make a live copy with a PRO subscription.

The best part is: to collect it once and access it from any browser or device.

Add productivity options to your page

So, to ease your mind, you start with a simple page. You are in control. And once you’re ready to increase your productivity, you add more widgets. These are the most popular:

• To-do List – to manage your tasks from your home page.
• Newsreader – and stay on top of the world from your browser.
• Notes widgets – the fastest way to jot down your thoughts and remember them.
• Weather widget – so see what’s happening outside – without going there.

We offer hundreds of possible widgets.

Your start page will be simple if you want to, but complete if you need it. Or, as one of our users puts it:

Using @startme to organize everything, finally! Peace 😌

@sec_Hawk

Pop the bubble with the Page Gallery

Another consequence of the minimalist or Big Tech solution is the dreaded bubble. It’s the feedback loop that reinforces your darkest, less helpful impulses. With start.me, you’re back in control. You can add all the RSS feeds you like, from every online source. There’s no external filter but your own mind.

We chose to make it possible for users to collect and share many sources at once. That’s why we’ve created the Pages Gallery, where our users share what they value most. We hope this will reduce the chance of extremism and fanaticism – the downside of the bubble. Our content team vets every single page in the gallery, so you know you can trust it’s helpful. Here too, there’s no algorithm, but only the human mind at work.

In conclusion

We started back in 2014 as a simple bookmark manager. Today, we offer the chance to transform your browser into a productivity powerhouse. No coding, no downloading necessary. We’re there whenever you need us.

Create a simple page and reduce decision fatigue. Add premium options to increase your reach. Learn from other users to start your own research or link collection. Whatever you choose to do, with start.me you are in control.

If you’re reading this, chances are you know this already. Why not let us know in the comments below. We’d love to have your input!