The three-cable rule

Count them first

Go under the desk and count the cables that run from the desktop to the floor. Six is typical: monitor power, monitor signal, laptop charger, desk lamp, phone charger, and whatever the sixth one is. Nobody knows what the sixth one is.

The target is three, and the route there is consolidation rather than tidying.

Getting to three

The move that does the most work is mounting the power strip under the desk rather than resting it on the floor. Everything that plugged into the wall now plugs in up there, and five floor-bound cables become one.

What belongs under the desk

Under-desk space is the most wasted area in a home office. The order to fill it:

• Knees first. Whatever else goes under there, your legs come before it. If you have to angle your knees around a computer tower, the tower is in the wrong place.
• A footrest, if you need one — see the chair fit guide.
• Mounted, not stacked. The power strip, the cable tray, and the excess cable length all attach to the underside of the desk. Anything resting on the floor is something you will kick and something the vacuum has to go around.

Labels: five minutes now, twenty later

Every cable behind a desk looks identical on the day you need to unplug exactly one of them. The moment to label is while they are already out and in your hand — not later, because later means pulling everything out again.

Masking tape and a pen genuinely works. Label both ends of every cable; one end tells you nothing when you are on the floor holding the other one.

What not to bother with

Cable sleeves that bundle everything into one fat tube look excellent in photographs and are miserable the first time you change one device. Velcro ties at intervals give you most of the tidiness and all of the flexibility, for a fraction of the cost.

What we'd buy

One purchase does most of the work here.