With the beginning of the Corona pandemic, I started to completely work from home. My castle became my office and I had to figure out how to keep it clean and lean. Just like my code! 😊
It took me some "refactorings" until I got to an organized workplace which I like. Here are the top 10 items, that have helped me to level up my home office. For some of the things presented here, I didn't even know they existed.
1. Outlet Plug Covers
Dust is a returning visitor to a clean workplace. It makes itself particularly comfortable in power strips. With outlet plug covers like "Steckel", you can protect your sockets from dust when you don't use them.
2. Portable Label Maker
I have a Brother P-touch 55 handheld label maker to create custom labels. It supports a variety of fonts, frames and symbols which make printing fun. I use it to label my cables, so I know which plugs to pull. Pro tip: Print some spaces before and after your text, so that you can wrap the label around your cable.
3. Flexible Cable Management Sleeve
Cable tubes are ideal to hide and bundle cables. In German they are even called "Kabelschlucker" which means that they eat cables. Cable management sleeves can be cut in any size and often come with a guide tool to easily add and/or remove cables. I recommend the ones from Dataflex.
4. Velcro Cable Ties
To bundle cables temporarily, you can use velcro cable ties. Cable ties keep cords snug, organized and tidy in your home office. They also look much better than short plastic cables.
5. Adjustable Cable Clips
If you want to lay your cables along your table top, then you need some cable management clips. Most cable clips have an adjustable buckle design to remove cables at any time. Thanks to the adhesive surfaces, they can be sticked on most surfaces.
6. Clip-on Ferrite Ring Cores
If you bundle a lot of cables, you also have to pay attention to electromagnetic shielding. You can reduce electro-magnetic interference and improve the signal integrity by attaching ferrite cores to your cables. In most cases though, it is sufficient to buy high-quality cables. I have made very good experiences with cables from Lindy Electronics.
7. Gripping Pads
You may know them from your furniture but gripping pads can be also used for electronic equipment. I use the anti-slip pads mainly for USB hubs because they usually don't stay in place when pulling out a cable.
8. Wall Outlet Extenders
Nearly everyone has a powerstrip at home but is yours on the floor or does it hang at the wall? I prefer to have multi plug outlet extenders at my wall, so that my robot vacuum cleaner has a free highway.
9. Router Shelf / Wall Mount
Now, where you have your power plugs on the wall, it gets time to also put your router on the wall. There are companies providing router shelfs for many different models. If you are lucky, you can even get one which can be mounted with a strong adhesive tape. There is heavy duty duct tape which holds 7kg and more. So you can bring your router on the wall without the hassle of drilling.
10. Zipper File Bags
Did you know that zip file folders exist in real life too? They are translucent mesh bags which show you what's inside. Zipper bags help you to organize office supplies accurately and efficiently. They often come with zippers in different colors, so you can use them to categorize your items. I use them myself to store different sets of cables (USB cables, audio cables, HDMI adapters, etc.).
More tips?
Do you also have a great tip on how to keep things tidy your home office? If yes, please let me know!
Where to buy?
I don't want to place payment links as this is an unbiased article based on my own experience. In case you have trouble finding any of the featured items, just let me know in the comments. 💬
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