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How to Get Back What's Yours: Reclaiming Your Desk with Cable Management

Does your desk work for you, or do you work for your desk? At one time or another, many of us have had the experience of trying to type and make phone calls amid piles of productivity-squashing clutter, moving gingerly to avoid further aggravating the chaos that’s hemming us in. With all of the cords and peripherals that can pile up in and around our workspaces, many of us end up settling for what little leftover space our messy desks grant us. That’s about to end. To all the clutter slaves out there, it’s time to rise up and show your desk who’s boss – by reclaiming it with some simple cable management.

We’re not suggesting that you run out and hire a professional organizer by the hour – after all, you really only need a little spare time, some creativity, and a few simple products to whip things into shape yourself. As you read our tips and tricks for setting your workplace straight, just think of how good it will feel as you subdue rebel cables with your own two hands, then stand triumphant over the newly reorganized desk that is yours – all yours.

Cable Caddy: If you’ve officially had it with cables sliding off your desk and landing in hard-to-reach places, the Cable Caddy is the cord organizer you’ve been dreaming of. A compact fixture that sits behind your computer at the edge of your desktop, the Cable Caddy is equipped with 5 small channels that allow the cords routed through them to move freely, but stop short of letting connectors get away. The result? Office cables that you don’t have to crawl under your desk to retrieve, even when they’re unplugged. In addition to keeping your cords accessible, the Cable Caddy keeps them separated and easy to identify. Considering how busy and electronically driven our workdays are, what more could you ask for?

Flexible Cable Managers: Otherwise known around CableOrganizer.com as Cable Elevators and Cord Towers, flexible cord managers convey your workspace cables from desk to floor – and everywhere in between – in well-organized style (chalk it up to their clean lines and satiny silver finish). Cord Towers and Cable Elevators have a flexible, spine-like design that lets you add and remove segments as needed to fit different desk heights, as well as weighted bases that keep the organizers exactly where you need them to be. Installation and use is easy – just fasten an Elevator orTower to the underside of your desktop (either at the edge where cables drop off, or at the point where cables feed through a desk grommet), then feed cords into it. The segmented construction allows for breakouts at any point, a terrific feature if your cables don’t all start out or end up in the same place… and whose do?

J-Channel: Another great way to manage unruly computer cords is to route them from work surface to power source along the lines of your desk. How to accomplish that? Try J Channel, a semi-enclosed cable raceway that easily mounts onto smooth surfaces with the help of a pre-applied, self-adhesive backing. Whether you use it on the inner or outer face of your desk – or even along your baseboard – J Channel couldn’t be simpler to put into action. Just measure the channel, cut it to size, attach it to the surface of your choice, and slide cables in. The J Channel’s J-shaped profile keeps cords completed concealed, but makes it a breeze to lift them out an insert new ones whenever the situation calls for it.

The Sanctuary Power Charging Station: If the charger cords for your cell phone, PDA and MP3 player have commandeered more than their fair share of your desktop, you can regain the real estate that’s rightfully yours by parking all of your small personal electronics – and their chargers – in the sleek and gloriously compact Sanctuary Power Charging Station and Desk Valet. Measuring in at only 9″x 9″, the Sanctuary has 12 built-in connectors that are compatible with 1500 different devices, and its single AC adapter makes multiple plugs a thing of the past. And who knows? If you lay your devices out neatly enough, you may even have room left over to stash a set of keys.