Spring Cleaning Part One: Your Office

Welcome to Spring! The season officially started Friday, even if it may not feel very Spring like outside. With this change of season many will find themselves soon opening windows for the first time in months. Airing out homes and offices to the fresh spring air. And cleaning the house from top to bottom in a customary Spring cleaning blitz!   Often your office can get overlooked in the great seasonal cleaning craze, and when not maintained it becomes overwhelming to clean. So use this strategy to tackle cleaning your office one big time a season and help keep clutter down all year round. First off, consider working on a Saturday. I know this is hard. No one wants to work on the weekend. You’re in your office Monday to Friday and live in this mess all week, the last thing you want is to spend more time there. And cleaning no less. But hear me out. During the work week when you try and tackle the cleaning job you inevitably get distracted with actual work or phone calls or emails. When you commit to a weekend day you can leave your computer and phone off and simply focus on the task at hand, cleaning. Try and put on some relaxing, peaceful music. Something you generally would not listen to in the office. Maybe classic rock, whatever it is to just help you enjoy this often dreaded task.   Next, get rid of the junk. Your first step to cleaning anything should always be to remove all actual trash. Old coffee cups, dead plants, dried up highlighters, grab a garbage bag and fill. Make sure to tackle the catch all drawer at this point. Don’t lie, you know you have one. And though they can be handy, when left unmonitored these drawers can grow a life of their own. Once you have finished make sure to actually remove the bag from your office. Immediately take it to the main bin or simply put it outside of your door. But physically get it out of your space.   While thinking about having clutter in your physical space consider your outerwear. Coats will still be necessary for a few months depending on where you live, you should have a place for them. And that place is not the back of your chair. Install a coat hanger on the wall by your door or make use of a hall closet in the office. You don’t need your coat while you are sitting at your desk. It will just lead to more clutter and bulk while your trying to work.   Which leads to the next step. Sit down at your desk and without knocking a million things to the floor spread your arms out wide and swing them in front of you. This is the prime real estate; this is the area within arms reach. In this space you should have only what you need. Be firm and fierce about this. Pictures of your family? Move them to a windowsill, hang them on the wall or put them as your computer screen saver. This is the area you will bring papers when you need to work on them so it needs to be clear for that. But clear the area again when you’re finished working on a task.   When you are finished working on papers you should have somewhere to put those as well. Consider creating daily work folders, one for each day of the week. You can put work that needs to be dealt with tomorrow or next week in the corresponding folder. You can also set up the folders on Friday afternoon to preplan your week, helping you start your Monday off right. For work that is completely finished make sure to have a filing system. Cabinets for documents that need to be kept or recycle items you no longer need.   Now hopefully your office looks like an office again! And with any luck you will be able to keep it looking that way.   Check back here next week for Part Two: Using To Do Lists.