Reducing cable clutter with stationary supplies

The state of my workspace affects my state of mind. Perhaps I shouldn’t find it hard to write code when there’s clutter, but until I find a way to cope with it, I’ll continue to have occasional cleaning frenzies and purges. One such event happened last week and I’m pretty happy with the result.

Most items in my workspace are like old pairs of jeans. They don’t look as good as those in the shops, and maybe aren’t as flash, but they’re comfortable and do the job well. I use a decade-old mouse, a keyboard from the mid 90’s, a monitor from 2005 and an aging MacBook air and while they’re functional, they leave something to be desired in the cable clutter department. As I’m not going to replace them, I need to deal with the clutter in another way.

Enter stationary supplies:

• Bulldog clips (so cables don’t fall down the back of the desk when they’re not in use)

• Sticky tape (so my headphone cable doesn’t run across my desk)

• Cardboard (so I don’t run out of sticky tape stashing a USB hub and long cables)

Now I have a clutter-free desk, without even visiting Ikea.