I’m untidy.

My desk looks like it’s been vomited on by the papier-mâché god of stationary.

There are lidless pens… crumpled post-its, half read books and mountains of paper everywhere.

Sophie hates it and she says I’m a desk hoarder. I agree. Trouble is, 3 days after I’ve done a cleanup all this miscellaneous ‘stuff’ just creeps back on my desk.

My ‘to do’ tray is actually a large saucepan that a friend gave to me when they were moving house. At the time I shoved it on my desk thinking “I’ll put that in the saucepan cupboard later” but I forgot… and within 2 days the papier-mâché god of stationary had swung by again and vomited 14 pens and a 5 books into it.

Now I’m using it as a ‘retro’ in-tray.

Anyway I digress. The tip I’m about to share with you won’t magically

turn you into a neat and tidy person. It won’t do the dishes and sadly it won’t massage your feet and do your work for you.

What it will do is help you keep all the pesky wires and plugs at the back of your desk, separate, in one place and kept in such a way that you can access them easily.

It’s such a simple idea but it can save you a headache (and backache) scrabbling around on the floor trying to untangle cables and find missing plugs.

For this you will need:

a) A desk

b) A binder clip

(If you’re not sure what a binder clip is, it’s pictured on your right).

It’s the type you can pick up for pennies at most stationers/or for free at most workplaces.

Here’s what to do…

1) Get your plugs and cables separated and in one place first

2) Thread each cable through the fat gap in the middle of the metal part of the clip

3) Clip it at the back of your desk behind your computer so that it’s out of sight

4) Plug the cables you’ll be using into the back of your machine and let the extra cables (e.g. for the camera or an external hard drive) simply rest on the rim of the binder clip

Now you should have a line of binder clips out of sight at the back of your desk keeping the plugs separate, neat and untangled.

Any plugs you’re not using should just rest in the loop of the binder clip so that you don’t have to break your back hunting for it on the floor next time you need it (see picture).

Done!

Couple of things to note:

– This won’t work if you’ve got an especially chunky, thick, elephant like desk or abnormally large cables.

– If you’ve got a posh desk and don’t want to risk scratching the wood try placing a little felt under the clips to create a barrier between the plastic and the surface.