How to Avoid Cable Clutter With Velcro

It can almost certainly be said that no matter how well you place headphones, chargers, etc. in your bag, all you find after fifteen minutes is clutter. The next thing you realise is that you need those headphones right now, there's no time to clear that mess when you're running for your life (i.e. to catch the bus).

Of course, this is not always the case. But when the way to avoid it is cheap, fast and - most of all - easy, why wouldn't you try preventing it?

Step 1: The Materials, the Tools and the Cable to Work On.

The materials are pretty simple. Actually there's only one you'll need: velcro (with some adhesive on the back).

After you have some velcro, some kind of scissors (because you don't have to sew or anything thanks to the adhesive on velcro) and the cable to work on, you're ready for this project. "Time to dance!"

Step 2: Preparing the First Piece of Velcro and Attaching It to the Cable.

Now what you'll want to do first, is to make sure that the end of the velcro is straight. Even though it may look like it, it's better to be sure about it. To do this, cut a small piece out of it (as pictured). It doesn't really matter whether you choose the "hook" or the "loop" side as the first piece to work on, but this piece comes to "the outside" of the wrap so you may want to think about which one to do.

The next thing to do is to cut a piece of velcro from the roll and attach it to the cable. Make a little loop around the cable and attach the end to the piece of velcro itself (the picture explains much more than my rambling).

Step 3: Preparing the Second Piece of Velcro and Attaching It to the First Piece.

Cut the second piece of velcro (if the first one's "hook," then cut a piece of "loop" and vice versa) and make sure it as well has atleast one end straight. After you've cut the second piece, peel off what's left of the adhesive-covering-thing-a-magics from both pieces and attach them to each other as pictured.

NOTE: Make sure that the two pieces are carefully aligned.

Step 4: Cleaning Up the Edges, Finished Product and Some Thoughts About the Project.

Time for the last step... Make some small cuts to round the end of the strap and you're done.

Straps like this are sometimes included with some cables and my experiences of them have been pretty good. The problem with the industrialised version of this project is that the velcro provided is of bad quality and/or the area of the velcro is small. In these cases, the strap hasn't worked properly for it's simple purpose.

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I haven't got around doing it because I "haven't" had time to do it. That's pretty bad excuse, because it took me around five minutes to find the velcro and around two minutes ti put this together so I think I'll do it for many cables now that I've seen how it works.

One thing that came into my mind while I was doing this, was that this can be so easily modifiable. You could use different colours of velcro and mixes of them (i.e. "loops" in one colour and "hooks" in another), you could alter the length and width of the strap, you could... To put it simply: it's adaptable, easy and it works almost everywhere. I think that the situations where this project is essential are LAN-parties, travels with laptop and other situations where you have to transport loads of cables from place A to place B.

Nonetheless, thanks for reading this ible and merry christmas to you all!