Worth It: Clear Up Cord Clutter

published Jan 21, 2014

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Day 14: Tuesday, January 21
Assignment: Clean up the cord clutter

Today we have one of those surprisingly “worth it” Cure assignments that is straightforward and simple, yet makes an unexpectedly substantial difference in how your home looks and feels. Let’s face it, no matter how well organized an area is otherwise, if there is a visible mess of wires and cords, things look unfinished and visually chaotic. Take a quick twirl through your home and identify the cord trouble spots and then work on getting them out of sight and under control.

Today’s Assignment:

• Take a look around your house and view the main cord-heavy areas from a few different angles. Select your problem areas and get to work on your plan of attack.

1. Make sure all the cords are in current use. Sometimes outdated cords and wires remain long after you’ve stopped using the equipment they belonged to. Remove them, along with any equipment that you no longer use – this is also a perfect time to clear out outdated tech that is past its useful life for you and move it to the outbox.

2. Get creative. Run cords down behind legs or other visual barriers if possible, consider securing along the underside of desk or table tops to get them up off the floor and into a hidden area.

3. Minimize the length of all cords if possible by keeping devices near each other; that way you can deal with them together and reduce the distance cords need to span.

4. Bind cords together into a central cable with cord managers. Maxwell recommends using easily removable cord managers that are flexible and wrap tightly around the cable of cords.

5. If possible, tack up bundled cables that run along the wall with special staples (Maxwell suggests the Arrow T-25 staple gun) that go around the wires and cords, to secure them without damage.

Have good cord control tips or tricks to share? Please let us all know in the comments.

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