Reddit mentions of C. K Tools 492001 Electrician's Scissors, 10-Inch OAL

I don't consider myself a pro. I don't make a living crimping cat5. But the faster I do it, the sooner I can get to the shit that I actually get paid for (I'm primarily a fiber/design guy).

I use a pair of electricians scissors (I prefer these, my coworkers like these), a good pair of gear ratcheted crimpers (like, ones that don't smash the tab on the cat5 head. these I hate. these I love), and cat5 heads like this (notice how the channels for the individual wires go about half way the length back. this makes it easier to feed the wires in aligned and get them in the channels before letting go. This is a pretty standard cat5 head, but sometimes people end up bringing in random ones or grabbing the only thing they could find at Staples and they're more trouble than they should be). We use cat5 solid core copper, not stranded. Much easier to work with IMO. The solid core stuff has a memory to it like a coat hanger when you bend it. The stranded stuff just kind of flops around and doesn't really hold its form which can add unnecessary difficulty when trying to feed the ordered wires into the head.

My method is to strip the jacket off a thumbs width from the end of the cable. Grab the orange pair and untwist it as i bend it to the left. Untwist the green pair and bend the green/white left. Untwist blue pair and bend it back slightly. Untwist brown pair and push to the right, push solid green near them as well. Then I lay my index finger behind the wires and start pinching them between my thumb and index finger in the order i want them as I swing the jacketed part of the cable hanging out of my hand from right to left (or left to right if you're a lefty) with my other hand to close the gaps between the individual wires as I'm pinching them down to hold them in place. Then, what I consider the most important step, wiggle the wires left and right heavily then less and less as you pull straight out on them a little harder and harder while holding the cable itself securely with your other hand. This should straighten all the wires. Then pinch again and cut the excess off flat, feed into your cat5 head, push all the way to the end, keep the pressure onto make sure all 8 are pushed all the way in as far as they can go, and crimp down.

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Probably takes me about 60-90 seconds per end. If I'm actually doing a lot and can sit down to work on them all at once I can probably do an end in 45 seconds. Its just practice though.