Everyone tidies their cables at least once. Almost nobody tidies them twice, because the first attempt was velcro ties on a bundle that still has to come apart every time you unplug something. Three weeks later it looks exactly like it did before.
The version that survives is not neater. It is structural. Four steps, in this order.
1. Get the power strip off the floor
This is the whole game. A power strip on the carpet is why you have a cable problem: every device has to reach the floor, so every cable is as long as it can possibly be, and all of it is visible.
Put the strip in an enclosure on the desk or mounted under it, and suddenly each device needs eighteen inches of cable instead of six feet. A Bred Large Cable Management Box at $27 swallows a full strip and its plugs; the Skjul Solid-Top Cable Box does the same with a solid wood lid you can stand a phone on. If you would rather it never touched the desk at all, the Spenn Telescopic Under-Desk Tray carries it underneath and adjusts to your desk's width.
2. Decide which leg everything runs down
Pick one. Usually the leg nearest the wall socket and furthest from where your legs go. Every cable that has to reach the floor — and after step one there should be exactly one — goes down that leg and nowhere else.
A Rygg Cable Spine turns that run into a single flexible channel that bends as the desk moves, which matters if you have a sit-stand setup. On a fixed desk, a Under Steel Cable Tray at $26 is enough.
3. Shorten, do not coil
A coiled cable is a cable waiting to come loose. Where you can, swap a six-foot cable for a three-foot one rather than looping the slack. Where you cannot, fold the slack flat in a figure eight and let it live inside the box from step one, not on the desk.
4. Leave the two you touch daily out of the system
Here is where most guides go wrong. If you plug your headphones and your phone in every day, do not bury those cables. Run them to a fixed, easy spot and leave them there. A Lokk Charger Box gives them a permanent home with the charger hidden inside — the cable ends sit on top, ready, and the mess stays in the box.
What this costs
A cable box and an under-desk tray is roughly $50 and takes an afternoon. It is the cheapest change on this whole site in terms of how different the desk looks afterwards, which is why we tell people to do it before they buy a riser.