At some point, it occurred to me that almost all of the bookmarks in my ever-expanding collection really represented "to do items" more than "reference items".

At some point, it occurred to me that almost all of the bookmarks in my ever-expanding collection really represented "to do items" more than "reference items". As others have said, most things can easily be searched as needed. But I was using bookmarks as placeholders, saying "I wanted to read x later", in most cases... sometimes other things. So I started treating bookmarks as various categories of todos. I do have a reference folder, but it has less than a hundred items. I often use those only passively -- i.e. when typing into the address bar, the starred link will come up first. All the other links are sorted into categories such as "files to download", "new articles", "new buyables" and so forth. Now that I think of Bookmarks as deferred work, it has changed a lot of habits. My total number of bookmarks has slowly dropped, and I tend to handle more stuff as it comes, or not at all -- or at least to be more conscious of bookmarks as a cost. An unexpected benefit has been a feeling of mental satisfaction, after closing a lot of semi-forgotten, open loops. I now think a big unorganized pile of bookmarks can represent a real liability, whereas if you actually go through all those links and delete the weaker ones you get a concentrated pile of goodness. You hit a point where you'd rather read your remaining bookmarks than most news feeds.