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Regardless if your office is outside the home or within it, check out these top 14 effective office spring cleaning chores that help guide you through the process of clearing out while gaining some of the following benefits.
Benefits of Office Spring Cleaning
You can make a tremendous amount of improvement in your office area and overall productivity by decluttering the space.
Doing a thorough decluttering is also highly beneficial when done prior to cleaning rather than during the process since it can help you focus and speed things up.
Plus, a cluttered space can cause visual over-stimulation and stress, even on a subconscious level.
Decluttering Tips
1) KonMari Method
If you feel that you struggle with getting rid of or donating items that you may not need anymore while spring cleaning your office, we highly recommend checking out The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.
2) Make Decluttering Accessible Year-Round
Try keeping compact and collapsible baskets or hampers in areas that typically need decluttering or are places where people have a tendency to leave items that don’t necessarily belong in that particular space.
We love to use a mix of woven fabric baskets and our strong and sturdy Clevermade Collapsible Hampers, which you can find a review on here.
They’re highly versatile and deal for stowing behind or underneath furniture for easy access, and then storing and eventually stowing items to their designated homes.
Take some time to clean up your desk space. This includes the drawers and any shelves, cabinets, or that make up for your workstation.
This is also the time to clean and dust around the desk itself, making sure to move it so you can get the floor beneath it as well as the trim and walls around it.
Cleaning Tips
! Try to only keep items out that you need to use regularly or that bring you joy or a sense of inspiration or motivation. This will help you stay focused and more productive, and it may even inspire you to the area clean for longer.
! Get into the habit of cleaning your desk on a regular basis — not just while doing office spring cleaning tasks. If you feel this might be an area where you struggle, work in baby steps as get started and consider adding them to your weekly cleaning schedule or morning cleaning routine.
! Consider using your room’s vertical space for things such as shelves and cabinets — especially if you lack space or need to have certain items nearby but prefer to have things tucked away and out of sight. This will result in less clutter and fewer visual distractions.
PS — I love the Tresanti Standing Desk and almost two years later. We actually have two in our house — one black and mine in white/light gray.
Take some time to thoroughly dust your office space before moving onto anything like vacuuming or wiping surfaces clean. This is also a good time to prep for any organizing that might come later.
This might include putting anything you plan to store elsewhere, keep, donate, or need to work on in a designated spot right away, rather than having to sort later and adding extra steps.
Items to Dust
! If it’s been a considerable amount of time since you last dusted, consider dry dusting all surfaces before using water or trying a wet dusting method to avoid scattering or spreading around dust, dirt, links, and other particles.
! For quick and efficient dry dusting, consider using a 360-degree duster that traps particles rather than scatter them everywhere like a traditional feather or synthetic fur duster. Good examples include the Swiffer 360, including their 6-foot extendable Swiffer.
! To speed up the pace of your dusting and general cleaning, dust at least once a week if not every other week. This will help prevent layers of dust from forming, resulting in less mess. You’ll also be able to move faster, and there will be less scrubbing later when you dust consistently.
Wipe down furniture and items such as knickknacks.
This step can be done prior to vacuuming, mopping, or upholstery and carpet cleaning, as mentioned in Step 4. Especially if you think wiping things done, even after dusting, will be more of a mess. Customize accordingly.
Items to Clean
! Feel like spring cleaning or quarterly seasonal deep cleaning takes too long? Check out these maintenance cleaning routines, chores, and schedules that you can use to keep your house well-maintained while getting tasks done faster.
Clean and tidy up your computer and other devices by carefully dusting and wiping them off with a lightly damp cloth or even disinfecting wipe if that’s your preference.
This is more so the case with mouses, keyboards, monitors, and other items that have collected dust or go through a lot of hands-on contact.
Items to Clean
! Check out our post on 16 Important and Often Missed Spring Cleaning Chores for Your Home next.
Take the time to clean and empty things that require emptying ever so often. This often includes anything from your trash and recycling bins to hole punchers and more. Wipe clean once emptied.
Items to Empty
! Make it a weekly, monthly, or quarterly cleaning chore or habit to empty your trash, recycling, and paper office items accordingly to stay on top of it or set a calendar remind if you tend to blow it off or forget about it.
Take a little time while working on your hallway or entryway spring cleaning chores to clean any washable, textile-type items if you have any that might need some tidying up.
This is also a great time to go through any clutter that you don’t use or need or that might belong someplace else, such as shoes, coats, toys, and pet trinkets.
Washable Items to Clean
Spend some time cleaning your office floors once the dust has had a chance to settle.
If your hard-surfaced area and knickknacks are still fairly dirty after dry dusting, you can vacuum and mop after the next step instead to avoid extra vacuuming later. Do it in whatever order makes sense.
Floor Cleaning
! Looking for something to make cleaning your floors quick and easy? Check out our hands-on, professional review of the Tineco S5 Wet-Dry Cordless Vacuum next.
If you have any storage furniture, cabinets, drawers, or other office furniture, try to take a few moments to ensure that they’re cleaned from top to bottom as well as inside and out.
This is also a good time to declutter and organize any items within or on the unit if you haven’t done so already.
If you find that your supplies and other small office items tend to get messed up often, it may be due to needing to confine them into a smaller space.
Spaces to Organize
! You can use bins, storage boxes, drawers, or shelf organizers to contain small clutter or essentials. These can typically be found online and offline, as well as through your local dollar store or donation place.
While working on your office spring cleaning chores, check your office supplies to see if there’s anything you might need to restock or reorder.
Items to Restock
If you have mail building up, take some time to work on decluttering and sorting through it. We’ve also listed a few helpful tips to help you out, both now and after the fact. Break things up as you need to and move at a comfortable pace, especially if you have a lot of mail to go through.
Sometimes, it helps to separate a large amount of mail into designated piles such as Junk Mail and Action Mail.
Junk Mail
When you’re ready, pitch the things you don’t need, such as supplements and junk mail. Make a date and schedule a block of time to look through items you plan to throw away but want to look at first. Try to get rid of the temp mail as soon as possible though.
Action Mail
Set aside action mail to process accordingly. This often includes bills that you need to look at, file, pay, and/or enter into your records.
Action mail may also include items that you or someone else in your home may need to fill out, return, and/or need to respond back to, such as government documents or old-school snail mail from a friend or relative.
! Looking for more mail-related tips? Check them out in our 22 Effective Ways on How to Spring Clean Your Personal Life post next (new tab).
! Set a Date. If you’re behind on your mail often, set a specific day each week where you address the task, whether if it involves billing or responding to a loved one’s card. You can also set reminders for yourself through apps, planners, or your calendar.
It’s good to go through your filing, paperwork, and documentation every so often to make sure everything is in order.
This is also a great time to update any records and gather any documentation or records that you might have lost, need to update or handle otherwise.
Know What to Keep and for How Long
Some records or documentation should be held onto for a certain period of time, if not indefinitely. In contrast, others may only need to be held onto for a year to three years, depending on what the document is about.
Other document types, such as certain tax records, may need to be held onto for a specific amount of time, often anywhere from 3 to 7 years.
Whereas, credit card statements are usually kept for up to a year. Items such as warranties can be held onto until they expire and receipts up to 90 days or so, depending on if they’re personal or for business.
It’s Good to Know
Make sure to research what you should or shouldn’t keep, even just for the sake of future reference. You can find plenty of information online, such as with this great article by Huffpost (new tab).
If you run a business, check with your accountant first and research business-related recordkeeping since you may want to consider other things like contracts, invoices, etc.
I took a course on this for college, and it was pretty intensive and surprising to see what showed up.
It’s important to make sure that your computer is tidied up and updated whenever possible. However, if you have a tendency to forget, you can spend a little spring-cleaning time making sure it gets done by doing some of the following.
Clean It Up
Software Updates
