Simple, Effective Cord Management

My home office space is pretty small. In fact, I can reach out and touch either wall. There's also a large storage unit with doors and drawers behind my desk, which doesn't leave a lot of space to push out my chair. But somehow I've made due for the past 2+ years working from home.

Like most of us, I seem to manage to pack a lot into this small space. In my office I keep my work laptop, a personal laptop, a printer, a lamp, and a paper shredder. I have a beautiful, but streamlined white, high gloss desk which is quite narrow. There are two main drawers in the desk and I keep two rolling drawer units on either side. I have lots of storage and space for files, and still have a decent amount of room underneath.

The cords from all the equipment get caught in the wheels of my chair when I try to roll it from under my desk and I’m constantly stepping on the cords and power bar. It drives me crazy!

Finally I decided enough is enough and I had to do something. My first plan was to use some zap straps we have to roll up the cords and secure them. I’d add a label to each I’d make on my label maker so I know which cord is which. Although this plan would have worked just fine, I’d still see the mess under my desk.

So I did a little research and found a few cord management options online.

These power bar boxes are streamlined and look great with their bamboo lids.

I opted for white in two sizes. Once they arrived I got to work. I unplugged everything and dusted. Then I cleaned the hardwood floor under my desk.

Once I had everything clean I decided which size made more sense. There’s not a lot of room under my desk. Along with the file carts on either side, I have a paper shredder and a small wastebasket under there.

The power bar is quite long and there are 5 devices plugged in, so the larger of the two boxes is the one I needed to use. I created labels for each cord with my label maker, and the boxes came with these awesome, colour-coded velro strips to wrap around the cords. One colour was more than enough to wrap for all the cords. I just used a pair of scissors to cut it to length.

It's kind of ridiculous it took me so long to sort something out that was really driving me crazy. In the end, the boxes were about $40 from Amazon. And I couldn't be happier with how organized everything looks under my desk. No more tangled cords, jammed into the wheels of my chair. Bliss!