Loose cord is a pain, spooling it up  or wrapping it in  bundles  lets  you grab whole cords without  sorting  out a  tangle

Some cord is made in the USA, full strength and made of real materials, other  stuff is  made in China. The real USA made 550 cord  is  the darker  orange in these pictures. It has nylon braided interior cords, The Chinese type has  just four inside cords  that fray easily and have much less strength

Differences in the color  of the two also. The brighter orange is  the USA  made called "safety orange"

To roll  or  to spool? It's up to you, but either is better than loose  cord

Three popular military  colors are (top  to  bottom) Desert  Tan, Gray (ACU) and OD green

 

Using a simple square braid, it's  easy to make an emergency rope much smaller for storage. When needed just unbraid the two ropes.

 

Loose cord  is a pain to use, but is much smaller than cord wrapped on a spool.

A simple spool can be made out of just about anything. I used  the foam  from a discarded  box of  ammo

 

550  cord can be disassembled. The outer sheath  can be used  alone, as well as the smaller inner cords. Cut the 550 cord and look at the ends, you'll see it's easy to  get the inner cords to push out. Then grab them and pull off the outer shell like  a snake shedding it's skin.

Once the outer sheath is removed the inner strands (usually 7 cords) usually get all tangled  right away.  So I  usually tie the ends and  then tie a loose  overhand  knot every  so  often to  keep the strands  together

To keep the  sheath from unwrapping, melt the ends with a lighter

 

One use for a few  feet of 550  cord  is to turn a  compass pouch into  a handy small bag for  the pack. With the cord attached the small pouch can be worn around the neck as a travel wallet, or easily found if lost in a larger pack

When an item has a hole too small  for 550 cord, a  few strands of the interior cord can be used. I melted together the ends of  a few strands

This way this small  knife  can still have a loop  of cord which is many times stronger than the cheap key chain it came with. A loop of 550  cord on a small roll of tape