What tabs do you open first when launching your browser?

For many years it was just one tab for me: www.google.com. I can’t remember what it was before then, but it was probably some portal site like www.msn.com or www.yahoo.com. But since the introduction of tabbed browsing, we are no longer constrained with just having a single home page open up when we launch our browsers. Here I share what’s on my auto-launch list, what is on yours?

First, a quick tip. Of course there are many times where you just want to fire up the browser to go to a specific web page. In that case you don’t want the annoyance of multiple tabs firing up. In those cases I use my alternate browser, which is Safari on the Mac and Chrome in Windows.

DASHBOARD

The first tab is my start.io page. It’s a very simple page that contains all the links I need. Since I’m now using FoxMarks on all my computers, this page may become obsolete except in the rare case when I’m not on my own computer. It is on my start.io page where I have a section called “Kernel” where my default links for any work session are kept. After I open them the first time on a new browser install, I set the currently open tabs to be the new home page. Next time, all the tabs open when I fire up the browser.

DASHBOARD TWO

This is a Google Document that I operate from. I find that having one place to start work from is easier on the nerves. Whatever is next on my plate gets stored here. I also have links to all of my routine checklists in this document (stored in Google’s pseudo Wiki Google Sites) as well as weekly and daily goals. Basically, this document is designed to help me keep focused.

GOOGLE CALENDAR

I need to know where to be after all. I sync my Google Calendar with Outlook which in turn syncs with my mail2web Exchange account, which then syncs to my windows mobile device. Phew … That’s not to mention the sync between my iPod Touch and Entourage.

GOOGLE APPS MAIL

My email inbox has become a main command center for most of my inputs these days. Especially with my increased usage of Google Voice, which transcribes my voice mails and then emails them to me.

TIME SHEET

I have a Google Apps Spreadsheet that is used to track all of my billable time. I used to store this in an Excel sheet synchronized with Mesh, but there was always a one-off case where a sync did not happen and I’d have to go in and try to get all the spreadsheets synced properly again. No issues like that with Google Apps Spreadsheets.

TOODLEDO

I am currently using Toodledo (say that five times fast) in conjunction with Outlook (to sync with my windows mobile phone) and ToDo on the iPod Touch to manage my GTD lists. I use the star function in Toodledo to help me filter what I will focus on the next day.

What web pages do you start up when you launch your browser?