Get your home office wired for success

Luckily for me, the move she has in mind won't involve lawyers or packing bags. She wants me to move out of the home office we share. She works neatly. I, on the other hand, leave a trail of debris and clutter behind like some especially messy snail.

I do have another office down in the daylight basement. But I often find myself sitting at a desk in the upstairs office Mary uses. She profits from that:  I offer witty remarks about things I have found on the Web and sometimes I even turn on a spare ham radio I keep up there to add to the entertainment. So you can see, even if she does not, that I bring a lot of value to the table.

To convince Mary of my good intentions -- and perhaps maintain my seat in the upstairs office -- I have embarked on a decluttering mission to convince her of my worth. I'll take you along with me today as I attack a maze of wires clumped together like especially amorous snakes that trail under desks and along the walls of our home office.

There's value in this for you, since there are reasons beyond neatness for straightening up the growing number of cables and wires in any home office. Computers breed wires like rabbits breed young ones.  There will be times when you need to replace one of your home office devices or work on one of them. The worst part of the job often is finding which cable in the tangle goes where.

Unless you've paid close attention to your own growing collection of wires you may be surprised at what you'll find under your desk (not even counting the Coke bottles and candy wrappers I found).

It's not unusual to see, in one room, a couple of computers; a router for networking your home office; a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) to provide back-up power for your computers; a telephone or two; maybe even an old-fashioned fax machine like we own; external hard disks that connect to your computers for making back-ups; a high-speed modem; a paper shredder; cables used to connect a smart phone to the computer; a card reader device to transfer photos to your computer, a table lamp or two; and various wall warts used to power modems, hard disks, telephones and the like.

Making sense of all those wires and cables can let you quickly connect and reconnect your gadgets when something goes haywire. You'll also avoid tripping over one of the wires and hurting both yourself and the devices attached to the wire. And, not so incidentally, the office will look a lot better when you’re done.

Decluttering your wires isn't difficult, although it can be time consuming. So let's get started.

First, we will put a label at both ends of every wire and cable. If you have a label-making machine, you can do an especially neat job of things. If not, I suggest using your printer to create the labels. You can attach them using clear tape; I recommend the extra sturdy clear tape used for taping shipping boxes since it's more likely to stick around. It'll do a better job than the transparent tape you keep on your desk. However you do things, tape the labels on securely and in a way that will let you read them easily.

When you're done, a typical cable might have a label that looks like this. On one end it might say: ROUTER. On the other end of the same cable: BILL'S COMPUTER. Make the same kind of labels for every wire and cable. You'll end up with labels like: iPHONE CHARGER, SPEAKER POWER, TO MODEM, FROM MODEM. You get the idea.

Do all that while the wires and cables are still connected to your devices so you don’t add to the confusion. Then, once everything is labeled, we're going to disconnect almost everything. By doing that, we'll free up the wires so we can untangle the mess beneath your desk or desks. It's almost impossible to straighten out the wires while they are connected.

You'll need several packages of cable ties. They can be found at Home Depot, Lowes or Radio Shack. Cable ties are used to bundle wires together. So, for instance, if you have several power cables that go to a UPS, you can create a neat bundle. Then you can bundle up ethernet cables. Once that's completed you'll have a neat, tangle-free group of wires.

Some of your wires may travel quite a distance. In our home office, there are both ethernet and telephone cables that start beneath Mary's desk and travel along the walls over to my desk. They're an accident waiting to happen. If they eventually creep away from the wall a bit, you can trip over them (I've demonstrated that more than once). Hardware stores sell hollow plastic molding strips specially made to solve the problem. Your wires fit in the hollow section and the molding strips can be tacked between wall and floor. That not only hides the wires, it protects them.

Once all that is done, you will have an easy time reattaching all your wires and cables, since everything is neatly bundled and labeled. And, as you reattach them, you are almost certain to make a nice discovery. I'll bet -- once everything is hooked up -- you'll find wires and cables and wall warts that are no longer used. Remove them (tuck them away in a drawer instead of throwing them away, they may come in handy some day).

Now you're done. Not only does your home office look better but it's also going to be much easier next time you need to replace a router or work on a computer. After all, the last thing you want to do in a repair emergency is to paw through a nest of wires just to find the ones you need.

I did such a good job in the upstairs office that I'm now assigned to repeat the same decluttering process in the downstairs office. At times virtue has unexpected and unpleasant rewards.