I'm an occasional hardware hacker and a packrat. That can be a messy combination. A big part of that mess is the hug mass of cables that I've accumulated over years of dealing with every kind of incompatible technology. The solution? Baggies. Zip lock sandwich bags (or the cheapest off-brand alternative). I now have a drawer in my filing cabinet with hundreds of cables all rolled up and sealed away. This isn't new for me, I started on the system when I commited myself to a clean office months ago. It seemed silly to me when Candace suggested it but I didn't have a better idea so I started on it. As the pile mounted I began to realize that there's some really huge surface area on all these cables which is bound to collect dust. As a matter of fact, a pile of disorganized wires really does look a lot like the filaments in a filter at a larger scale. So those piles of wires were, in one way, filters soaking up dust then spreading it out whenever I went looking for something. Now pretty much anything with two connectors on it (and some with one connector and a pigtail) is stored away in a bag where it's surface area is contained inside a bag with minimal area exposed to all that dust.

The tangles are gone too. That benefit is actually a lot more obvious I guess. Rolled up wires inside transparent bags are a lot easier to sort through than if they were rolled up and twist tied. Some people hang them up but I don't like the appearance of that and I don't have the space anyway.

So the home office is coming along well. It's taking a long time but I just spend a little time every now and then and the disorder is beginning to shrink away into the corners.