If Your Home Is Cluttered With Loose Cords, Try This Organizing Tip From TikTok

In decades past, cords were at the bottom of your "enemy" list when it came to clutter, but in a world of electronics for every purpose, these useful but slightly annoying wires can easily take over your surfaces, making them look messy and chaotic. Stashing these cords in drawers or cupboards is the obvious choice to hide them, but even tucked away, the wires get tangled up and cause havoc you have to deal with later. Rather than wrapping up your cables and hoping for the best, what if you could create a storage system that keeps cords organized and compact, so you can easily access them when needed but keep them out of the way the rest of the time? 

This TikTok storage hack does just that, enlisting the help of an inexpensive craft keeper and turning it into the ultimate home for your wayward cords. As the go-to for clever organizational tips and tricks, TikTok has made it much easier to store your items and keep your home clutter-free more generally too. As the biggest culprit for household disarray, cords are one item that never seems to find the right spot. From Dollar Tree hacks to shoe organizers, keeping cords stored in your kitchen and everywhere else in your home helps to decrease clutter and provide more space. However, organizing and disguising are very different, and if you don't want to sift through and untangle a million cables whenever you need one, this TikTok hack is for you.

Your first step is to order a craft organizer plastic box or a similar item like the Amazon Clear Craft Keeper (around $24). These individual boxes fit inside one larger vessel so that everything is kept together neatly, but you should also pick up magnetic cord wraps like these Target options ($5 online), or have twist ties, rubber bands, or even some string on hand. Wrapping your cords up in a tight loop will ensure that they don't become tangled inside their box, too. Labeling is also crucial with this hack. You can do this in a variety of ways but using permanent marker, a label maker, or writing on masking tape and sticking it to the edge of the box that points upwards will help you locate cords quickly and easily. 

To subtract one step, you could also use craft boxes that feature small dividers or cubbies, like the Amazon Compartment Storage Box, which retails for about $11. Keep in mind, though, that you will need to wrap your cords in smaller circles or loops, securing them with twist ties or something similar, to ensure that they fit neatly inside these cubbies.

To keep your cords from popping out of their divider sections, you can also use a small piece of masking tape and stick it across the open divider hole, labeling the cord in each particular slot on the tape. This will both keep the cord in place and act as an allocator for each individual cable. If you're following @apopofyou's hack, you can fit one or two cables per individual box, depending on how thick they are. The magnetic wraps will help to create more space, so coil each cord as tightly as possible to ensure you can keep all of yours inside the boxes. Once everything is labeled, you can tuck them all away, close up the larger outside box, and keep it in a closet, cupboard, or pantry.

If you prefer to keep everything even more organized, you can also enlist the help of small zip-lock sandwich bags, which you can keep similar cords wrapped up in, then add these to boxes. The bags will keep everything securely cloistered so that even if you need to add several varying cords to the boxes, they won't get entwined or tangled up. You can label these bags, too, then note what can be found inside the boxes so you know what's what.