Confessions of a Tech Hoarder: Pandora's Box of Bits and Bobs

This is the first in what will probably be a series of posts about organising my various tech hoards. I say hoards - it's not that bad. It's fine. I can stop any time.

In The Beginning, There Was A Ziploc Bag

A ziploc bag with some SD cards, a tube of thermal paste, a handful of screws and maybe an adapter or two. You throw it in a drawer and forget about it until you need it, except I never forget about it and always need it and there's always something new to add.

Eventually it migrated into an old mini LCD box, then two halves of that stacked together and held in place by optimism and gravity. Opening it shifted things around, closing it fit the lid worse than last time. Lifting the lid felt a bit like everything inside had rearranged itself overnight - which is where the title comes from. Instead of releasing the evils of the world you release a USB-A to Micro-B cable from 2014 and a MicroSD adapter you're not sure works anymore.

The Hydra Problem

The thing about a box of misc tech is that it doesn't belong anywhere else - it's not cables (those live in a different box, a problem for another post) and it's not tools (those have a toolbox). This is the stuff that falls between the cracks:

• Flash storage (SD cards, MicroSD, USB sticks of various vintages)
• Card readers and adapters
• Thermal paste and thermal pads
• Spare phones
• Old Raspberry Pis
• Random dongles that you're 80% sure do something important
• Screws, standoffs, and other tiny metal things that are impossible to find when you actually need them

Fine when it was small, but it kept growing, and at some point you have to accept that a rattling LCD box isn't a storage solution.

The Odyssey Begins

So, a binder. Specifically a zipped A4 ring binder with a retractable handle so you can carry it like a nerdy briefcase.

The ABC Life Zipper Binder - 8 insertable dividers, holds 300 A4 pages, zip closure, retractable handle. The kind of thing you'd see in a stationery shop and think "who buys that?". Well, me, apparently.

The real trick is what goes inside it.

The Trojan Horse: Coin Pages

The hack that makes the whole thing work is coin collecting pages.

Uncle Paul 20-pocket coin sleeves fit a standard 9-hole ring binder, are cheap, and are perfect for SD cards, MicroSD cards, USB sticks and other small flat things. They're literally designed to protect small valuable items in individual pockets.

For larger items like HDMI adapters, EDID emulators and other dongles, the 9-pocket version has bigger compartments while still fitting the same binder.

I'm a bit baffled this isn't a more common approach - coin collectors have been solving this exact problem for decades.

A Binder Fit For Hermes

For stuff that doesn't fit neatly into coin pockets, some zip pouches:

• 1IntheOffice Ring Binder Pockets with Zipper (6 Pack) - flat zip pockets sized for coiled USB cables
• YOUSHARES Pencil Pouch 3 Ring (5 Pack) - transparent high-capacity pouches for medium stuff like card readers, small tools, thermal paste
• Tiardey Zippered Pencil Pouch (3 Pack) - colourful mesh pouches for bigger items like spare phones, Pis, chunkier adapters

One Cable To Rule Them All

The last piece is adapters. In 2026 you can pretty much get away with a single good USB-C to USB-C cable if you've got the right adapters, but the key is making sure those adapters can't go missing.

Both sets I picked have keyring loops built into each adapter, so they sit on a retractable keychain attached to the binder itself. If they go missing it means the binder went missing, which is a different problem.

Seminer USB Adapter Set (5 Pack) - silver set with: - USB-C Female to USB-A Male - USB-A Female to USB-C Male - Micro USB Female to USB-C Male (surprisingly hard to find on its own) - And more USB-C/A combinations

5-in-1 USB-C Adapter Set - black set with: - USB-C to USB-A - USB-C to Micro USB - USB-C to Mini USB (crucial - old routers, cameras and some Arduinos still use Mini USB in 2026) - USB-C to USB-C

Between these and a decent USB-C cable you've got every legacy connector you'll realistically run into in the field.

Closing The Lid

Spoiler though - the binder doesn't actually close. I got greedy and tried to cram old phones, tablets and a couple of Raspberry Pis in there, which it turns out the binder has some opinions about. Those probably want a binder of their own - they're flat and roughly A4 anyway, so the same approach should work fine. Problem for next time.

For everything else though - the SD cards, USB sticks, adapters, card readers, thermal paste, all the small fiddly things that started this whole project - it works. Significantly better than a rattling LCD box held together by hope.

First in a series, the cables and the toolbox and apparently the bulky-tech-hoard are all up next. One box at a time.