Control your cables: 10 ways to combat desk clutter

Cable organization is tough—I get it. After all, it’s not like you meant for the area behind your desk to become a fire hazard of tangled cords and wires (right?). Well, it’s time to tackle that clutter, with the help of these clever gadgets. Here are 10 creative cable organizers to help you organize and untangle your wires, cords, and cables, before you end up with an actual fire.

Photo credit: Flickr user prawnpie

Keeping cables on your desk can be a chore, especially if your desktop tower lives on the floor. These cable clips stick to your desk (via adhesive), and keep your cables from falling off of your desk every time you unplug your laptop or peripherals. CableDrops come in packages of six, and you can grab them in bright (yellow, pink, and green) or muted (white, ochre, and brown) color combinations.

Price: $10, SFMoma Museum Store

Are your cables too long? Applecore cable spools can fix that problem—these colorful spools come in three different sizes, and can help reduce cable clutter and tangles by reducing the length of cords. Applecores come in multiple colors, including black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, and pink, and are designed for different types of cords—small cores are great for earbuds, medium cores are designed for portable devices such as mobile phones and iPods, and large cores are designed for household appliances, such as laptop computers.

Price: $1.99 – $4.99, Applecore International

It’s impossible to completely reduce cable clutter—you’ll always have a mess of cables somewhere, even if it’s a small mess. These $8 cable labels from The Container Store can help you get that mess organized: they’re flexible, helix-shaped cable labels that wrap around individual cables and can be labeled with a ballpoint pen or marker. They come in packages of eight different colors, so you’ll (hopefully) never have to tug on a wire and wonder where it goes (or where it’s coming from) again.

Price: $7.99, The Container Store

The Sumo cable box is a nice little cable management tool that helps keep cables on your desk. This small paperweight-like box features two grooves for cables to run through, and micro-suction pads so that the box doesn’t slip off of your desk. This is a nice alternative to CableDrop clips if you have just a couple of cables and/or you don’t want to stick something to your desk. The Sumo box comes in both black and white.

Price: $11.95, BlueLounge

Here’s yet another cute, colorful way to keep your cables on the table: Quirky’s Cordies cable organizer. This cable organizer has four rubber grips with four slots for—you guessed it—four different cables. It has a weighted base so that it doesn’t fall off of your desk, and it comes in pink, white, and charcoal.

Price: $9.99, Quirky

This cable organizer is for extra long cables—hence its name, the XL Cable Organizer. This cable organizer lets you wind multiple cords around the center spindle, and has a flexible rubber shell that helps hold them in place. You can use this to keep cables uncluttered behind your desk, or to store extra long cables.

Price: $11.99, The Container Store

Quirky’s Plug Hub can help keep your cords organized behind your desk. This hub has an area for your power strip, and three openings at the top for your cords to stick through. It will help keep your cords untangled when they’re behind your desk, so you can quickly and easily identify them when you need to. Inside, it even has a place to wind your cables so that you don’t end up with a rat’s nest.

Price: $19.99, Quirky

If all else fails, or if you’ve got too many cables to deal with, hide them in the CableBox. Similar to the Plug Hub, the CableBox is large enough for your surge protector or power strip, and has cord outlets on either side. The CableBox is available in black and white.

Price: $29.95, BlueLounge

If you need to organize cables on the go, check out Your Magnet from Lufdesign. This clever suction cup magnet attaches to mobile devices, such as a laptop, tablet, or phone, and can keep multiple cables organized. For example, this is useful if you’ve got several USB devices plugged into a laptop. Your Magnet comes in five colors—red, scarlet, chocolate, gray, and lime green.

Price: $7.00, Lufdesign

These colorful cable twisters will help keep your cables organized and untangled by holding them together. Each twister can hold multiple cords together, and they come in different colors so you can color-code which cables have been twisted together. You can grab the Cable Twisters for $10 for a pack of three, in blue and green, white, or black.

Price: $9.99, The Container Store