Spring Cleaning for your Office

It’s that time of year again! Spring is here and we are all coming out from under winter’s grasp. The sun is shining again and if you’re like the majority of us, the sunlight is shining on your dusty, dirty office. Gross. It’s hard to be productive when you are looking at stacks of papers and dust bunnies. Why not start anew and do some spring cleaning for your office? Today we’re sharing seven tips on how to spring clean your office and get back to business.

1. Sort Your Catch-All – You know, the drawer or basket you just toss everything in. The loose pens, tiny sticky notes, random paper clips and anything else you just don’t know what to do with. Go through your catch-all and get rid of anything and everything you don’t want or use. Once it is nicely organized, you’ll feel so much better and amazingly accomplished if you’re anything like me!
2. Keyboard Crumbs Anyone? – Physically clean and disinfect your space. It’s hard to be organized if you are surrounded by literal filth. Get out the disinfectant and spray your desk. Use some compressed air and clean out your keyboard. It’s amazing, and disturbing, the amount of crumbs that get caught down in there.
3. What’s Underneath? – Clear through and detangle any cords from any random dust bunnies, sticky notes, paper clips, pen caps, or whatever falls down into the void under your desk. While you are under there, cinch together cords so they are nice and neat and less unsightly.
4. Evaluate the “Back Burner” – All those items we put on the “back burner” take up space in our office. Are you truly procrastinating on working on them yourself or can they be delegated to someone else. Either take action on them or reassign, but right now they are just taking away from an uncluttered office.
5. Aaahh, Filing – Everyone’s favorite (ahem…sarcasm here). Get to all of your old filing that you’ve been putting off. If you feel like your filing system is not working for you, this is an excellent time to reevaluate it and create a new one. The same goes for electronic files. If it is unnecessary, shred and delete. Here’s an extra tip, if you haven’t accessed it and have to question whether or not it needs to be archived, chances are you can get rid of it.
6. Go Through Emails – In our blog, What to do with that pesky inbox, we addressed email management and how to keep organized. Utilizing some of the tips given including email management rules and folder creation, you can begin to declutter that pesky inbox because it needs just as much organization as your desk.
7. The Circular File – You may notice a running theme in many of these tips and that is to junk what you don’t need and what is taking up space. Take a look at what you are putting into the trash and note what items they are. Moving forward, make a habit of trashing those things right away to help maintain a clean office.

Personally, I work better and have a clearer mind when my workspace is free of junk and clutter and know that I will be working on my office within the next week. I can’t wait! Now, I know you all are going to run out and do this too, right?

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