This $20 Find Can Cut Your Vacuuming Time in Half

So often, our biggest hurdles to getting stuff done are mental ones. This is most true when it comes to little things like vacuuming. For me, the thought of unwinding the cord, plugging it in, vacuuming happily until the tether tightens and then having to walk baaaaaaack to the outlet, unplug, find a new plug, repeat, repeat room by room by room blah blah blah… it’s enough to keep me skating by with my weak cordless for far too long. This $20 purchase, however, flattens that hurdle and has me cleaning (almost) as often as I should be with my full-blown vacuum.

An extension cord eliminates, or at least drastically reduces, the need for multiple unpluggings and re-pluggings and the walking back and forth that goes along with it. And an extension cord with a retractable reel takes almost all of the cord headache out of the vacuuming equation.

To use one, find as central of a location as you can, preferably in a spot that won’t cause you to wind around too much furniture, plug in your extension cord, and plug your vacuum cleaner into that. When you’re done, just reel your extension cord back onto its holder and congrats! You’ve spent a way bigger proportion of your vacuuming time actually vacuuming.

Here are a few of our top cord reel picks, based on rating and price:

• Bacyco 25-ft Cord Reel
• Electrix 20-ft Hand Wind
• Woods 25-ft Cord Reel

If you’re willing to spend a bit more for an automatically retracting cord, check out these:

• Alert Stamping Reel
• ZillaReel 50-ft Retractable Extension Cord Reel
• Performance Tool 20-ft Retractable Cord Reel