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As your gadgets pile up, friction between you and the things you need or want to do increases. With some planning and a few practical tricks, I turned my tech clutter into an organized, efficient setup.
1Set Goals and Create Solutions
When taking on an organizing task, it’s best to plan before you execute. I usually like to visualize in my head what the stuff are, and what problems I will most likely come across.
I like touse Obsidian to plan things, so I used that to write down my goals, potential problems, and how I plan to tackle those problems. Doing this gets low-level problems out of the way, making the task go smoothly. It also helps you see the bigger picture and find out whether you need to make any changes before it’s too late.
In my case, I set a few simple goals:
While writing these goals, I realized that there were a few challenges I was going to face:
After a bit of thinking, I thought about the solutions to these problems:
I did my best not to make things complicated, as that’s one way to quickly overwhelm yourself and make the task bigger than it seems. You want to make the framework simple and easy to follow.
You will still encounter problems while arranging, but you will be glad that you have a guide and that you’ve solved most of the obvious ones before you actually started.
2Gather Before You Place
Before you start arranging and putting things away, it’s best to take a big box and put in all the things that are not where they’re supposed to be. Stuff like scattered cables, chargers, extra phones, lenses, earphones, batteries, and the like; put them all into a big box and just look at them—this helps see the bigger picture, and you might even find a way to categorize them more efficiently.
At this phase, you’ll have a better idea of the task ahead of you. You might find that you’ll want to change a few things from what you previously planned, and that’s okay. That’s the point of gathering everything, to visualize even further. If you just started placing things, you’ll end up scattered all over again with no system to keep things tidy for long.
On the left side of the box are the things I decided to sell and give away to declutter my space even more. I replaced my bulky Scarlett Solo and AT-2020 combo with a simpler and more versatileRode VideoMic Go II (our review). Doing this turns multiple items into one without sacrificing quality. I’d also be able to use it on my camera or my phone, making it portable—something my old recording setup couldn’t do.
3Create a Dedicated Space
Now that you’ve gathered everything you need to arrange, it’s not yet time to place. It’s time to prepare their homes.
If you already have an empty space for them to sit in, good. However, I intend to repurpose the steel cabinet that my PC sits on top of and make it more functional. You’re very likely to have a space that can serve to be more functional—it’s free, and it’ll make the space more fulfilling as it now has a more real purpose.
In my case, I emptied out my drawers. I’m happy with the top-most drawer as it’s filled with important non-tech stuff that I need to be accessible. However, each one below it is a random mess of cables, accessories, and the like. I placed those things in the bin during the gathering phase.
During this time, I also found things I’d like to put in an “archive” at the very bottom drawer so I wouldn’t have to worry about them during the arranging phase.
4Place and Arrange With Intent
A bit of a spoiler; I actually found that 90% of the tech stuff I wanted to arrange actually fit in a single drawer. I was very surprised at how efficient being intentional can be.
Sorting by Urgency and Shape
This main “tech drawer” is where I place my cables, tech accessories, batteries, storage devices, etc. I categorized the mess of cables with zip bags that I labeled with a permanent marker. I then put them in order of urgency, no matter the importance. If it’s important but rarely gets used, it stays in the back—the more often I need it, it goes near the front.
At the back, or the leftmost part of the image, are the bags ofcables I decided to keep. Going to the right, you can see similarly shaped objects on their sides in a row: cylindrical camera lens attachments, rectangular chargers, and a small box of various small things like batteries, SD cards, etc. I was inspired by a bookshelf-style arrangement. It’s much easier to grab things out of slots like this than they are stacked on top of each other.
Most of the cables I have are USB-C cables. While most of them are in bags, Ipicked a few USB-C cablesthat have fast charging or data transfer to put in the front for easy access.
Tricks to Be Efficient With Space
As you may see, I used one of the cable bags as a divider. I noticed that the top space was perfect for frequently used items. Items like my Rode VideoMic Go II, Anker USB hub, and Xiaomi laser measure (which fit satisfyingly in those spots and won’t move around).
I also fit the Rode mic foam over the space where I put the often-used cables. Things stacked on top of each other may contradict what I said previously, but I’m more likely to use the things on top than I am below.
Another thing I liked is the secret compartment in the image above. Below the box of camera batteries is the other half of the box filled with rarely used items—or stuff I want to be hidden away like my Trezorcold storage wallet. It also houses some very short cables that I’m not likely to use in most scenarios.
After all of this, I was left with two empty drawers. One, I filled with larger stuff that I didn’t use much, like my controllers, a spare keyboard and mouse, and my PSP. I didn’t even need a put-away box because it’s easy to put things back with how it’s arranged.
I achieved my three main goals but didn’t expect to have more storage space even though I could now store more things. This extra reward makes it way more worth my time, and I hope it will be worth yours, too!
