How to organize cables and chargers

Cables tangle because nobody owns them. A charger is bought with a phone, the phone is sold, the charger goes into a drawer, and ten years later the drawer holds forty cords of which three are useful. A tidy system has three parts: knowing what you own, marking what each thing is for, and giving the spares a place with a limit. This guide takes them in that order and ends with where to take what you no longer need.

Gather everything

Collect every cable, charger, adapter and power brick in the house. Check drawers, bags, the car, the desk, the back of the sofa and the box under the bed. Tip it all onto a table or the floor. The size of the pile is the first piece of information.

Sort the pile by connector type:

• USB-C, USB-A, micro-USB and Lightning cables.
• Power adapters and bricks.
• Video and audio: HDMI, DisplayPort, headphone and optical leads.
• Round-barrel power plugs and the odd old connectors.
• Extension cords and power strips.

Within each type, look for matches. You will find duplicates, and you will find cables that look alike and do different things.

Match each to a device

Pick up one cable at a time and find the device it belongs to. If you can plug it in and it works, it is a keeper. If you cannot say what it was for, put it in a “mystery” box. Give the box a date six months ahead and write that on the lid. If nothing needed a cable from the box by then, it goes.

What to let go

Let go of:

• Cables for devices you no longer own.
• Cables with bare wire showing, a bent connector, or a plug that has been hot or discolored.
• Chargers with a cracked case.
• Adapters that duplicate one you already have, beyond a single spare.
• Anything you cannot match and that has sat in the mystery box for the full six months.

Label both ends

A label that is on one end only is no use when the other end is plugged in. Label every cable you keep at both ends.

Ways to label, from simplest up:

1. Tape flag. Fold a short strip of tape over itself round the cable so that it forms a tab, and write on the tab. Cheap, fast, and easy to read.
2. Tags. Small plastic cable tags or paper tags tied on with thread. Easy to move.
3. A printed label wrapped around the cable. Neater, if you have a label maker.
4. Color. A dot of colored tape, one color for each person or each room, with a note in a drawer about what each color means. This is quick but depends on you remembering the key.

Write the name of the device or the room (the “desk lamp,” the “bedroom tablet”), not the type of cable. A cable’s type tells you nothing about where it goes. Label the power brick too, with the owner’s name, so the one that goes home from a visit is the right one.

The one-drawer rule

All spare cables live in one drawer, or one box, in one place. That is the rule. The drawer has four parts.

1. One place. If a spare cable is found anywhere else, it comes to the drawer.
2. Sections. Use a divider or a few small boxes so that each connector type has its own part. A cutlery tray works.
3. A limit. The drawer holds one spare for each type, plus the ones you will rotate. When the drawer is full, a cable goes before another comes in.
4. A label to enter. A cable that is not labeled does not go in the drawer. That keeps the mystery pile from growing back.

Coil each cable loosely and fasten it with a hook-and-loop tie or a strip of cloth. A loose loop lies flat in the drawer and is easy to undo when you need the cable.

Where the cables you use stay

The cables in daily use are a different matter from the spares. Give them a fixed spot.

• At the desk: keep the charger plugged in, with a clip or a small hook to hold the end of the cable so that it does not slide behind the desk.
• By the bed: one power strip or a charging station, with cables labeled for each person’s device.
• In the kitchen or living room: a single basket or a shelf near an outlet for the shared devices.
• In the car and the bag: one cable of each kind you need on the road, in a small pouch, and not borrowed from the house.

What to recycle, and where

Electronics are not household garbage. The US EPA says that donating or recycling consumer electronics conserves natural resources and avoids air and water pollution. Its page on electronics donation and recycling gives a short plan.

• Look for a program. The EPA says manufacturers and retailers offer several options to donate or recycle electronics, and that you should check for recycling facilities in your state or community. It lists Call2Recycle, Earth911 and Greener Gadgets as places to search, and states that it does not endorse any of them.
• Check what a program takes. The EPA page does not say which cables or chargers each program accepts. Ask the retailer or the local program before you make a trip.
• Look for certified recyclers. The EPA has a page on certified electronics recyclers that explains what certification means.
• Wipe your data from devices. The EPA’s advice is to delete all personal information from your electronics. That applies to phones, tablets and laptops, not to a bare cable.
• Pass a working charger on with its device. When a phone or a tablet goes to someone else, the charger that fits it can go too.

Batteries and power banks

The EPA says that lithium-ion batteries, and devices that contain them, should not go in household garbage or recycling bins. It also warns that even used batteries can have enough energy to injure or start fires. Its advice for a loose battery is to place non-conductive tape, such as electrical tape, over the terminals, and to seal each battery in its own plastic bag. For devices with built-in batteries, it recommends certified electronics recyclers, retailers with take-back programs, or the local solid waste or household hazardous waste program. It also advises that if a lithium-ion battery becomes damaged, you contact the battery or device manufacturer for specific handling information.

The EPA page does not name power banks. Most contain lithium-ion cells, so check the label, and treat a power bank that does as a device with a built-in battery. A damaged battery does not go in the drawer, and the EPA’s advice is to contact the maker.

Keeping it

Label the charger on the day a new device arrives, while you know what it is for. When the device goes, the charger goes with it. Every few months, open the drawer and take out the cable you have not used. For the other small things that gather around the house, the same four steps work: gather, match, label, limit. For the bigger problem of paper, the next guide is on paperwork and mail, and the tidy kitchen drawer is covered in the guide to the dresser and drawers.