These days my tabs arent usually coding related. A journal is a good idea, but personally I'm terrible at retrieval afterwards. I havé notebooks that get ignored, possibly due to an overdeveloped web-search reflex. So maybe it would be good to develop a new habit.
I can live with bookmarks hoarding since I don't browse those anyway. but they do pop up as suggestions when I begin typing something relevant in the url bar, which is helpful.
I had the same journal problem, so now I (try) to go through the past week of journal entries every week and pull out the parts I find important/useful , and create a digital weekly review page that I go back and skim over.
I'm trying to make my journal a less of a write it and forget it type of place, and more of a starting point for ideas. Use the journal as a playground, and then come through and curate out the good ideas into a more long term location.