New consoles, controllers, smart home gear, random cables, a stack of game cases – it all feels great until your living room looks like a warehouse. The goal is not a Pinterest-perfect setup. You just want to find things fast, keep them charged, and stop tripping over boxes. Here is a simple way to reset everything in under an hour and keep it under control long term.
Inside the Article:
Do a 20-Minute Reset, Not a Full Declutter Marathon
Start by pulling all the new stuff into one spot: tech, games, accessories, cables, manuals. Do not sort by room yet. Just get it all on the table or floor where you can see it.
From there, do a quick sort into loose categories:
- Everyday tech: phone, tablet, laptop, earbuds, watch
- Gaming: consoles, controllers, headsets, physical games
- Small accessories: dongles, SD cards, portable drives, batteries
- “Not sure yet” pile: gifts you might return or test first
Now decide what the new gear replaces. If a new headset makes the old one pointless, the old one goes into a donate/sell box, not back on the shelf. Same with controllers, speakers, and random backup mice you never actually use. You are not trying to solve your whole house here. You are just making sure you are not organizing stuff that should really be leaving.
Pick One Home Base for Everyday Tech
Next, choose a single “home base” for daily devices. This might be a corner of your desk, a small shelf near the couch, or a sideboard by the entry. The key is that it is central and easy to reach, not hidden in a closet.
Set it up with:
- A small charging dock, multi-port charger, or power strip
- A tray or shallow box to catch phones, earbuds, and watches
- Room for one or two “in rotation” gadgets like a handheld console or e-reader
Keep cable management simple. Use short cables where you can, and give each port a job: one for your phone, one for your partner’s phone, one for a tablet, one for a handheld. A strip of painter’s tape or a small label on each cable (“Phone”, “Switch”, “Tablet”) saves a lot of guessing later.
All the extra bits – spare USB-C and Lightning cables, wall bricks, dongles, and batteries – live in one small box, drawer, or pouch within arm’s reach of this base. If you have to cross the room to find an adapter, it will end up tossed on the nearest surface instead. Think of this as your “tech junk drawer,” but contained and intentional instead of spread across the house.
Sort Games So You Can Grab the Right One Fast
For physical games, pick a simple rule and stick to it. A few easy options:
- By platform: All PS5 together, all Switch together, all Xbox together.
- By frequency: “Play often” shelf and “once in a while” shelf.
- By type: Co-op and party games in one spot, long single-player stuff in another.
The point is to make it obvious where to look when someone says “let’s play something quick” versus “I want to get back into that RPG.” If you already have a media shelf dialed in, you can borrow ideas from how you might group gear in something like the flashlight kit breakdown: one or two clear roles, not 10 micro-categories.
Keep controllers, headsets, and remotes as close to the main TV or monitor as possible. A small basket on the TV stand, a narrow shelf under the screen, or a wall hook strip for headsets is usually enough. The test is simple: can you sit down and be playing in under two minutes without hunting for anything?
For digital libraries, spend five minutes cleaning up the mess:
- Make a “Now Playing” or “Favorites” folder and pin current games there.
- Create a “Party / Co-op” folder for easy group nights.
- Hide or archive stuff you are done with so the home screen is not a scroll-fest.
This keeps new titles from vanishing into a backlog list you never scroll through again.
Give Small Gear and Accessories a Clear Home
Small items are what usually turn into clutter piles. Earbuds, SD cards, portable SSDs, streaming sticks, handheld gadgets – they all need a defined spot or they end up in random cups and pockets.
Use small bins, drawer organizers, or tool rolls to group them by how you actually use them, not by type:
- Travel tech: Travel charger, spare cable, power bank, airplane adapter, compact earbuds.
- Work kit: USB drives, laptop dongles, presentation clicker, webcam, spare mouse.
- Hobby / camera / creator gear: SD cards, card reader, portable drives, camera batteries.
This way, when you are packing a bag, you grab one “travel” pouch instead of hunting for five separate pieces. A simple tool roll or zip pouch works well for this because it forces a limit on how much you keep.
Labeling does not need a label maker. A strip of painter’s tape and a pen on the front of a bin – “Travel”, “Work”, “Gaming extras” – is enough. The goal is that anyone in the house could put something back in the right place without asking you where it lives.
Make the System Easy to Reset Each Week
Organization only matters if you can keep it going. Build a tiny reset routine into your week so the gear explosion never fully returns.
Once a week, take 5–10 minutes to:
- Return stray controllers, remotes, and handhelds to their spots near the TV or monitor.
- Drop loose cables back into the tech box by your charging base.
- Top off rechargeable batteries, power banks, and controllers.
- Move any “not sure yet” items into a donate/sell box if you still have not used them.
Set a couple of simple rules so clutter does not creep back in:
- One-in, one-out for cables: If a new cable or charger comes in, an old or duplicate one leaves.
- Controller cap: Decide how many controllers you realistically use. Anything beyond that is backup or gets sold.
- Surface rule: Coffee table and desk are for active gear only. If it is not being used this week, it goes back to its bin or shelf.
If you like dialing in systems, you can treat this the same way you would treat a small routine in your day. The habit approach in pieces like the site’s travel workout guide applies here too: keep the reset short, tie it to something you already do (Sunday night, after trash day, etc.), and do a “good enough” version even when you are busy.
Bottom Line: Make Gear Easy to Grab and Easy to Put Away
You do not need fancy furniture or a full weekend to get your new tech and games under control. A quick reset, one central charging base, clear homes for games and accessories, and a 10-minute weekly sweep are enough to keep everything usable.
If you can find what you want in under a minute, plug it in without hunting for a charger, and put it away without thinking, your setup is doing its job. The rest is just fine-tuning as new gear shows up.
