Organise your working space

There is a saying that ‘a cluttered desk means a cluttered life’ but sometimes in fact, life gets in the way of sorting through clutter and often that clutter is normally swept to the back of a drawer to be dealt with another day. Use these spring cleaning tips to help you sort through your stuff to make way for the next quarter.

A refreshing start to the season
Out with the old and in with the new! With the start of each month there are new challenges to overcome, new milestones to surpass and new goals to meet, whether you are part of a growing company or just working as a single cog in a huge grandfather clock industry. Why not make a new start to this new season by taking a fresh look at your surrounding cubicle? Adding homely touches such as a few flowers or a new office plant will give the cubicle a nice lift, as will rearranging any furniture you have. Would that chest of drawers look better next to your desk? You can always try it out in a spring cleaning session!

Throwing out any old water bottles
Believe it or not, water bottles have a ‘use by date’ if you happen to re-use them. The frequent re-filling of water bottles can eventually cause the tip and the neck of the bottle to start getting stagnant, particularly if you cover the neck with your mouth as you drink. As a test, take the lid off your current water bottle and just gently sniff the rim. If it only has a slight ‘breath smell’ or is odourless, you are fine. If however you’re getting a bit of a mildew smell, then that is a sure sign to bin it and get a replacement water bottle. The same rule goes for water bottles left in the car for too long, as exposure to sun can cause the water inside to stagnate and that is never nice. 

Typing up meeting notes
If your office is anything like mine, we are constantly writing small notes to type up later, even if it is just a short sentence or two. In an effort to go entirely digital it can be hard to get rid of some of our student ‘note taking’ roots, but it is important to type up any old notes you have. If they are nonsensical words or phrases, add them to a document labelled ‘Miscellaneous Notes’ or similar, as they may be key information regarding client data or passwords. That is one of the troubles about finding old notes; you aren’t sure which ones are no longer relevant. Sometimes it is safer to type everything up and just file it in ‘typed up notes’ just in case you do need to refer to it at a later date. Then you can throw away all the old scraggly bits of paper as you no longer need them.

Investigate any odd smells
This one should be a given, but there can be times when you bring some cookies or some fruit into work and put it in your drawer for later, only to completely forget about it. We’ve all done it in the fridge at home, so why wouldn’t it happen at work? If there is a strange smell hanging around your cubicle, try to investigate the source instead of simply spritzing the area with Febreeze. If there doesn’t seem to be any food residue about, simply wipe down all surfaces and interior draws with disinfectant wipes, as this will sterilise any surfaces just in case. Now you can spritz it with Febreeze, or add a nice jelly bean air freshener!

A lot of it comes down to common sense, although in some cases where used water bottles are concerned, we tend to forget about replacing them with newer bottles. Clearing out your desk every season acts as a welcome break between work and also gives you a chance to re-evaluate how you organise your desk. You may even find some useful notes in the back of a drawer that you had forgotten about! 

Article supplied by www.appleclean.co.uk