How to Tame Wild Warts

 A couple of months ago I had finally reached critical mass with my computer room/office/photography studio/spare bedroom! Rather I should say I'd finally had enough with the gigantic tangle and MESS of wires, cords, connectors, electric plugs, which has spawned like demon rabbits under my computer desk. Admittedly I'm a tech junkie, so I have just a very few tech gadgets in my office. That is if two computer, two printers, one scanner, three USB drives, mice, tablets, Pocket PCs, speakers, monitors, TV, and...I'm sure I missed a few items, but you get the idea. Anyway, I've been annoyed about the tangle by my feet since I moved a year and a half ago. I have been reading various things online about getting organized and, during my critical mass breakdown mentioned above, I decided to start doing something about it. It started slowly, I got the cords and connects and power strips off the floor (to be covered in another post) and then I had the Epiphany! I have since had my brilliant idea confirmed as brilliant by a couple of other bloggers. There it is: Now to Tame Wild Warts! Of course I'm referring to wall warts, or the bulbous, bulky transformers which accompany nearly EVERY electronic gadget sold in the last 10 years!

The problem is this! You decide to get organized and plug all your devices neatly (with some king of logic hopefully) into a power strip. Then you have a seemingly innocent event...You need to unplug your, oh, say, cable modem because you lost your Internet connection and can't finish reading my blog post. You duck under your desk and look frantically for the ONE PLUG which will need to be temporarily unplugged and then reinserted into the outlet. YIKES! You have at least 14 or more devices all plugged mercilessly into power strips - which one goes to the cable modem??!?!?

The Solution! Label all your warts! It takes only a minute, and using one of those ever so convenient P-Touch labelers which everyone should have right next to their stapler, it's so easy - even fun! Why take the time you think - I have have linksys modem, the plug probably says the manufacture name on it right? Wrong! Most plugs are not labeled and you may have several similar plugs anyway. By labeling the plugs you know instantly what device it's used for.

This may seem trivial, but it has already made a world of difference for me. It's also very handy if, like me, you carry several devices around with you (external hard drive, battery chargers for my phone, IPaq, etc.) I grab into the bag for the phone charger and because it's labeled, I can easily find it!

So go ahead, get your warts under control - label them and see how much nicer they are to you.

-- Rex Hoss