Although you may feel most productive while at home, you are also more relaxed and more lax when it comes to working at home. You might be a complete neat freak in an office environment in public, but the difference with a home office is that there aren’t often meetings held there. You can host conferences over skype and barely anyone else enters into your office, so cleanliness might go out the window if you’re not careful.
We’re not saying your home office is filthy but it can be easy to forget that you have to clean and maintain it just as you would a work office. People relax once they are in their homes and this is no crime, but it is essential that you try to keep your home office clean and tidy, as studies have shown it has a profound effect on the quality of your work and your levels of concentration during the working hours.
Home-Made Potpourri
Pick a scent you like, be it vanilla, lemon or lavender and create your own made little potpourri bag! Buy a small, simple organza bag from a craft shop or off the internet and use potpourri or scented air fresheners to fill it up with lovely, subtle scents. You can also make it from scratch by using coffee beans, lemon peels or even a piece of cotton with a few drops of vanilla extract dripped onto it. In order to keep everything in place (and to reduce mess) you can place it in the organza bag and then pop the bag where your office is most likely to benefit from it.
Some bags are great for musty old paperwork drawers, whereas others benefit from staying near the fridge. Of course you don’t want to ignore any overpowering odours as that is normally a sign of something off, and you’ll want to clean that. The scent bags are just a good way of making your home office smell fresh and clean all the time!
Cleaning and Sterilising the Keyboard
People don’t often realise how dirty their keyboards can get. You type on it all day, snacking on food with your fingers without washing your hands and then absentmindedly return to the keys. Dust, nail residue, crumbs and more can built up in between the keys as well as sweat and grease from your fingers, so it is important to give it a good clean every now and then.
Make sure to unplug the keyboard before cleaning it. Most keyboard keys have a special mechanism that means they are easy to snap off and snap back on again. Use a credit card for the first few keys and wiggle it about gently so that you don’t break the mechanism, then once a few keys are free you can easily remove the rest.
Get a spray bottle and fill it with 2 parts water, 1 part vinegar slightly warmed in the microwave with a few droplets of tea tree oil. Leave the keys in another, smaller bowl of vinegar/water mixture to soak while you give the base of the keyboard a few good squirts. Leave it for a few minutes then wipe it down fully with a clean cloth. You might see a lot of gunk come off the keyboard this way, so try wiping it down with a tissue first! Dry off the keys and then wiped down all surfaces with a scented wipe (to get rid of the vinegar smell). Once everything has dried fully, you can snap the keys back into place and plug the keyboard back in. Lovely!
Regular Clear Outs
Little things like organising your paper tray every week and emptying the bin before it gets too full will really help when it comes to keeping your home office clean. It might not seem like a big deal but it can help in the long scheme of things and reduces the amount of objects you have to fiddle with when you should be working on long projects! If you have a fridge in your home office, make sure to give it a wipe down every now and then and remember to throw out of date food out, otherwise it can build up a nasty smell over time.
By making little amendments often throughout the month, you will be able to keep on top of office cleaning far better than you would if you try to do one big clear out every few months or so. If you let it build up you might be tempted to keep allowing it to get worse and worse, so it is always good to get into a regular cleaning routine before it gets too bad. Even something as small as throwing away old or broken pens every week and making sure any shavings are properly put in the bin will be a massive help in the long run.
Article provided by Supreme Office Cleaning; a professional cleaning service based in London and Kent established in 2006.