My drawer of charging cables looked like a nest of black snakes. Every time I needed a specific cable, I had to pull the whole tangle out and spend five minutes unknotting it, usually while my phone sat at three percent.

I did not want to spend money on a cable organizer, so I tried a trick I saw online using something everyone throws away.

The toilet paper roll organizer

Save a few empty toilet paper rolls. Fold each cable into a neat loop, slide it inside a roll, and stand the rolls up in a drawer like little sleeves. Each cable gets its own roll, so they can not tangle with each other.

Standing them upright in a drawer is the key. You can see every cable at a glance, and you pull one out without disturbing the others.

How to make it look decent

Bare cardboard rolls work fine, but they look like trash. If that bugs you:

• Wrap each roll in washi tape or leftover wrapping paper.
• Paint them with leftover craft paint.
• Line a small box with the rolls glued together to make a honeycomb divider.

The honeycomb version is the best. Glue several rolls side by side inside a shoebox, and you have a permanent cable organizer that costs nothing.

Label each one

Write on each roll what the cable is for: “phone,” “tablet,” “camera,” “spare USB.” Or just wrap the cable with a matching piece of tape near the plug. Then you never unroll the wrong one.

It is a silly simple fix, but my cable drawer is finally something I can actually use instead of fight.