Many people are starting to head back to the office after months of working from home. Others have been dividing their time between their home and office, finding it difficult to keep things orderly in both places.
So we’ve compiled a few cleaning tips to help you keep your professional space safe (sanitized) and tidy as you transition back into office life.
Start From Scratch and Purge
First, empty out your office or the bag/box that’s transporting all your work items back to the office. Go through every single item and decide what is essential to keep – donate/chuck the rest. With the barren cubicle area, start a deep clean (dusting, scrubbing, vacuuming, and disinfecting). You can now set up the essentials (and decor) tidily in spots that make sense.
Make Stations
When putting things back, put similar things together, making ‘departments/stations’. Keep all the garbage bins together, all the stationery in one desk corner, all the files in another. These designated areas will help to cue you when things are getting too full and prevent the mess from spreading out.
Clean As You Go
This is so important. Things should move from Point A to Point B with no pit stops. That crumpled paper goes directly in the garbage, not on the floor first. Everything should go directly to its designated station. Again, this helps so the mess isn’t distributed all over the place making it more likely to go longer before being addressed.
Debris ending up in liminal spaces (cracks and crevasses) means more time for mold and bacteria to grow unnoticed. Plus, it’s fewer steps to just dispose of or place something directly in the right spot the first time you touch it.
Habitual Duties
A great way to stay on top of the cycling duties (garbage changes, spot vacuums/sweeps, wipes, sanitizer, etc) is to set reminders in your phone calendar. Every phone has this feature and it’s so easy. You can set it to repeat at any custom interval (daily, weekly, etc). Use the start of seasons to cue deep cleans. Eventually these will become habits.
Common Area Chore Lists/Wheel
For shared spaces, rotating chore wheels are a great way to stay on top of things like dishes/coffee stations, fridge cleans, main floors, mirrors, bathrooms, etc. Structure is so helpful.
Hopefully these tips can help to create tidy environments, and therefore tidy minds, so your transition back to work is easy. Leave the rest to our team at City Wide Cleaning.