Two little stories for you today. First, my friend Brittney likes to borrow things from me. It’s ok, she pays me back in babysitting, and always takes good care of my items. The thing she borrows from me the most is our old Wii VGA cable. We use an HDMI cable to connect our Wii to the TV, and so do they. Whenever she has company over, they like to hook the Wii up to a projector and project the games on the wall. The last time she asked to borrow the cable, it was a bit late, my son was already in bed (and the room with the box of cables is right next door to his. The box was facing the wall, the cables are a complete mess, and it’s really a pain to get to this cable. I ended up finding it, and telling her to keep it until I ever need it again (which is likely never).
Second story, my husband hates the nest of cables near my laptop. I have a USB hub where most of my hardware is plugged into, but there are several USB or power cables that I need to have ready to plug different pieces of hardware into. These include my Zune, my headset power cord, and my mouse power cord. I want to have these connections close, and ready, but I don’t want a bunch of cables just hanging around near my laptop.
I now have incredibly easy solutions to BOTH problems!
First solution involved the aforementioned box o’ cables and all of my empty paper towel rolls. I started saving up my paper towel rolls and placing one rolled up cable in each roll. Then you take the rolls and put them into the box so it ends up looking like a honeycomb of cables. Each cable is then separated, easy to find, and doesn’t get tangled up. I think I may have to find some rolls to put my Christmas Lights in!
The second solution is to use binder clips! Simply clip the binder clip onto the desk and then thread the cable through the metal part of the clip. It keeps the cord organized, and ready for any device to plugged in.
So get your cords organized and looking great today!
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I love the cable trick! So simple! I may do that soon. Based on the pic of your binder clip trick….you’ve move to a mac….which of course would mean that something is about to freeze over. 🙂
ROFL!!! Not my picture, but it was everywhere on the net so I couldn’t figure out who to credit for the original photo.
I hate all the dangling cables at the back of my computer table… keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers cables….you name it 🙁 One day we’ll all have just wireless peripherals and devices in our home!
lifehacker.com has a ton of similar suggestions if you search their site for cablemanagement or cordmanagement
Michael – ahhh a girl can dream about all wireless peripherals! I’m sure it’s coming… not soon enough though! Thanks for the comment!
Don – yes I’m aware that other sites have similar suggestions. Many of my readers, though, do not frequent tech sites. I like to find things that would interest my readers, and let them know about it. Thanks for stopping by!
I love both ideas!! Especially the paper towel tubes! I have a drawer at my desk I throw my cables in and half the time I dont know what they go to or they are all tangled up. Awesome, thanks!
Love both of these ideas!! I always need to dig behind my desk when the cable for my camera falls behind there. Will have to see if I have some binder clips around. I know I should have some somewhere!
I love these ideas! Time to start saving paper towel rolls! 🙂