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c/space-saversward.dianaward.diana5d agoProlific Poster

The day I stopped shoving cables behind my desk and actually labeled them

Used to just cram every cord I owned behind my old wooden desk in Seattle, thinking out of sight out of mind. Then last month I tried to swap my monitor and spent 45 minutes tracing each cable with my phone flashlight like a detective. Now I have a little label maker from Amazon and I actually taped tags on each one. Has anyone else had a cable disaster that forced them to finally organize?
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3 Comments
ross.kim
ross.kim3d ago
Honestly I think this whole cable thing is just one tiny piece of a bigger pattern where we all pretend stuff doesn't exist until it bites us. Same reason I had 47 unread emails in my inbox last week or let my car's check engine light glow for three months. We tell ourselves future-us will handle it but future-us is just as lazy and forgetful. The label maker thing works for like two weeks then reality sets in. Kinda like buying a fancy planner in January.
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dakota_miller93
Labels are great but you gotta be careful with those label makers. The cheap tape ones fade over time especially if your desk gets any sunlight. I learned that the hard way when all my nicely labeled HDMI cables turned into blank white strips after about 6 months. Also pro tip don't use colored tape for different cable types because it just turns into a guessing game when the colors start looking the same in dim light. I switched to writing directly on the cable connector with a silver Sharpie and that doesn't fade or peel off like sticky labels do. The marker job looks janky but it holds up way better than my label maker ever did.
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robin896
robin8965d ago
Silver Sharpie is the way to go. Been doing that for years on my job site cables. The label maker tape gets brittle too. Peels off in one piece after a while. I do a little clear packing tape over the sharpie mark. Seals it in. Doesn't fade or smudge. Looks like garbage but works forever. Plus you can still read it through the tape.
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