[dna113]

I recently needed an HDMI cord for a monitor and realized that my cord drawer was accruing technical debt.

Whenever I am done with a cord I just throw it in there... it gets all tangled up with all the others. When I inevitably need one of those cords I impatiently pull it out and it makes all the other cords more tangled.

Here I am needing an HDMI cable that won't just come out easily, I have to pay off my past laziness. But I have choices/tradeoffs/opportunities here.

I can just hurry up and get the minimum untangled and get back to watching TV.

I could untangle all of them since untangling one of them will help me untangle the others and wrap and label them.

I could just untangle the minimum, but also throw a roll of tape and a marker in there and wrap and label all future cords that go into that drawer, eventually they'll all be nicely wrapped up and well documented.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jolmg]

Wow. I never thought of clutter in the home as technical debt, but it's as similar as you describe. That really makes me see home organization in a whole new light.

[stuartaxelowen]

Check out Mari Kondo's show on Netflix! It is a guide on managing organizational debt in your home!

[yboris]

Marie Kondo's approach of having a designated place for each item is marvelous: I save so much time because I never have to search for any item unless my wife didn't put something back :P