With the restrictions of the pandemic, over two-thirds of Australians are now working from home. This means that home and work-life now mix, and houses are now more than just a place for rest—it has also become a productive space.
Some may be enjoying this flexibility, but at least 49% of the population still find it challenging to balance work with home responsibilities. It becomes even more challenging when your home workspace is a mess.
Whether you’re new or already used to this set-up, you need to know these desk cleaning tips that might help you effectively organise and manage your home workspace.
Before cleaning the home office desk
Heading to the battle without a game plan will guarantee failure. Similarly, desk cleaning without evaluating what needs to be done will undoubtedly give mediocre and inefficient results. Sometimes it messes up things even more.
Hence, the best way to start the task is to envision the desk arrangement and cleanliness you think will best work for you and gather the necessary cleaning tools. Specifically, you need to do and prepare the following:
1. Prepare and label bins
After almost two years of working from home, your desk has surely accumulated a significant amount of things. Consequently, it’ll take time to sort these out without appropriate containers.
You can group them as ‘keep’ for items that can still be used, ‘donate/sell’ for things that are still functional but no longer serve their purpose, and ‘throw’ for items that are beyond repair. Since most of the latter are E-wastes, you can drop them off in Sydney recycling facilities.
2. Remove everything from the table
The next step is pretty simple. You need to take everything off the table and sort them based on the containers you prepared. Also, unplug all electronics on your desks to avoid damaging the circuitry when you start cleaning the area.
3. Sort and pile papers accordingly
Since there might be papers containing essential and sensitive information on your desk, make sure to check through the piles and weed out the ones that can be discarded.
Now that you’re done decluttering the desk, you can now start the cleaning part. But, how exactly should you clean your workspace?
How to clean your home desk
A study conducted by the University of Arizona found that office surfaces like desks contain 500 bacterial genera from 20 different bacterial divisions. Yikes!
I’m sure you wouldn’t want these microorganisms lingering on your skin while you work. Hence, you need to be thorough in your cleaning. Listed below are the items and components that must be adequately cleaned:
1. Desk Surface
Start cleaning the desk surface cleaning out the accumulated dirt and dust using a dry cloth, a duster, or a vacuum. Afterwhich, you can start disinfecting the surface using mild cleaning agents or a dishwashing liquid. Don’t forget to include the edges.
2. Computer Peripherals
Since most of our work relies on our computers, it’s safe to assume that the computer and its peripherals (e.g. mouse, keyboard, and headphones) contain the most germs.
To avoid damaging these items while keeping them clean, use alcohol-free and antibacterial wipes to remove all the accumulated dust, dirt, and germs.
3. Office Accessories
These include staplers, scissors, pens, and many more. Since these do not have electrical components, you can wash them with water and soap instead of settling with disinfectants. Just make sure to dry them well before you move them back into place.
After Cleaning
Managing your home workspace should not end with cleaning. Always think of long-term benefits. Hence, you also have to plan how you’ll maintain the cleanliness and organisation of this space. Here are things that you can do:
- Have a bin beside your desk to prevent the trash from piling up
- Keep papers together
- Utilise office storage like drawers
- Make wiping of surfaces and items a daily routine
Final thoughts
Even with the increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, it’ll still take years before the world regains its old face-to-face routines. Until then, we’ll have to deal with the new normal, which includes working from home.
On that note, keeping our home office desk free from clutter is one of the many things we can do. It may be troublesome at first, considering our busy schedules. But, eventually, you’ll realise that an organised desk helps you work more efficiently since you won’t have to spend time looking for items lost in the heap of trash and disorganised office paraphernalia.
But, if you really can’t find time to do the desk cleaning yourself, don’t hesitate to call cleaning companies, like Cleanrific, to finish the job. You can even avail an entire house cleaning to maximise Cleanrific’s services.
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