Sometimes I’ve got so many power tools plugged into various outlets on the job that it becomes impossible to distinguish which cord goes to which tool. To make sense of this tangle of spaghetti, I bought five different colors of tape at my electrical-supply house. Then I colorcoded my tools. I marked each cord with a wrap of tape near the plug, another near the midpoint of the cord and a third next to the tool. When I got more than five tools, I started putting two colors of tape on the cords.
This simple identification strategy saves me time when I need to unplug one tool and plug in another, or find a specific cord when they become entangled.
Bill Haynes, San Francisco, CA