Simple Tips For Keeping Your Home Office Clean And Tidy

Table of Contents

Set Up Your Ideal Workspace

Thanks to the world of business relocating so many of its operations permanently to the digital realm, it’s now easier than ever to work at home! Once you have secured a space in your house that is relatively free of outside interruptions (kids and pets!) you can set up everything you need just like you would have it in an office building! Your workstation with its desk and a comfy chair, your computer, your coffee mug and a waste paper basket. Everything is nice and tidy and you are ready to do your best work!

The Reality Check: A Month Later

A month later – Your desk is covered with papers that need filing, except the ones that you have to print up again because you spilled coffee on them, the floor around your desk is filthy, and your waste basket is overflowing with fast food and snack wrappers because nobody ever comes in to empty it. This never happened when you worked at the main office, there was always some nice person pushing a housekeeper cleaning cart around who would take care of all that for you! Now it’s up to you!

Tips to Keep Your Home Office Clean

Clean Slate

Sometimes it’s best to just start fresh with a clean slate. First, take everything off of your desk, even if you know you will be putting some of it back on later, just do it! Put it all in a box beside your desk. It’s true that some people do their best work when their desk is completely clear of everything but the bare necessities. It’s also true that some people like some clutter, they need a bit of chaos to inspire their creativity.

Now it’s time for you to figure out where you are on that spectrum. After you give the surface a thorough wipe down with a bleach solution, start by adding just one thing that you need right now back onto the disk’s surface. Go back to work and only bring more things up as you need them. At the end of the day, whatever is left in the box can be shoved in a drawer or filed.

Wipe Down

We already did your desk surface, so now it’s time for everything else to get the squeaky clean treatment! Wipe down your keyboard, mouse, desk lamp, and any other high-touch hotspots, being careful to use a cleaning product that’s safe for electronic components – not too wet! Did you know that millions of unseen germs are covering everything you are looking at right now? Well, they can make you ill, and you can’t get work done if you’re sick in bed!

The wipe-down needs to hit all the surfaces and items that you handle regularly to stave off the spread of germs and clean away the accumulations of dust that are bad for you, and for your electronic devices! While we still don’t encourage you to eat off of your desktop, you could now, and probably be OK. Now just do the same thing once a week for the rest of your career!