Cords, cables, and assorted wires are a fact of life, but they can also create a lot of visual clutter. If your cord sitch is driving you crazy, it’s probably time to set aside an hour or so of your weekend to get things under control—this is one of those quick and relatively inexpensive projects that goes a long, long way in improving the look of your home, or your office, or your home office, or LOL your home/office. There are a lot of options for cord and cable management; these are some of the best.
Hooks & Clips
For day-to-day cord management hooks and clips that can hold your most-used cords when they’re not in use, keeping them at hand when you need them but off the floor/inside the Roomba/wrapped around your dog’s neck when they’re not in use.
Command Hooks
These hooks are unexpectedly perfect for cord management: They come in loads of different sizes, from teeny tiny to very large, and are available in white, white with a wire hook, and clear. The other benefit of Command hooks is that they stick on and can be removed without causing damage to furniture or walls, so you can put them on whatever surface is most convenient to hold your cords.
Stainless Steel and Wood Hooks
If you like the idea of a hook but want something that adds more visual interest than a plastic hook provides, look for adhesive hooks in metal and wood.
Clip Cord Organizers
Shorter cords, however, tend to slip off of hooks—so for shorter cables, try a cord manager that will grab onto cords. Just like with the Command hooks, these cord holders have a peel-and-stick adhesive backing that’s safe to use on drywall, plastic, wood, glass, metal, or rubber.
If stick-on cord clips aren’t for you, magnetic styles are a good alternative.
Sleeves & On-Wall Cord Covers
If the goal is to hide cords and cables from sight entirely, a sleeve or baseboard cover is what you want.
Cord Sleeves
Neoprene sleeves are flexible and can be cut to the size you need using scissors, so they’re adaptable for uses from hiding a computer cord in a home office to covering up a bundle of TV wires in the bedroom.
Cord Raceways
PVC cord raceways need to be cut with a utility knife or saw but are more durable and structured than neoprene. They’re also paintable, so you can match them to the wall, baseboards, or moldings.
One Last Thing: Label It!
One of the best things I did for myself was to bust out my label maker and make labels for all of my cords and chargers. I know, I know! It sounds over the top but honestly, a job that took virtually no effort has paid off over and over and over again—fun fact! Dyson vacuum chargers look the same but are not universal, so I labelled mine for easy identification and it’s so nice to not have to try every similar-looking charger when one of my vacuums needs juice. (Let’s move right along from the fact that I have more than one Dyson vacuum and focus on the bigger lesson to be learned here.)
The same thing is very true of all kinds of other cords and chargers, which is why I really encourage you to get a label maker and label the shit out of everything, but also very specifically your cords and plugs. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.