Spring Cleaning Tips for Home Offices

Spring is a great time to clean a home office. Not only is it possible to open windows, but the sun is out, the birds are chirping, and the air is fresh. In other words, there's no better time of the year to clean a home office.

Paper Products
Stacks or drawerfuls of paper can be an intimidating form of clutter. Manage these during spring cleaning in one of four ways. If a form is important, scan it and retain the original. If a form is less important, but you want to keep a copy, scan it and dispose of the original in one way or another. There are two further ways of getting rid of paper. Either repurpose the paper by using the back as scratch paper, or, if this is not possible, shred the paper and recycle it.

Computer Clutter
Take advantage of spring cleaning to clean your computer as well. Remove unnecessary icons and shortcuts from your desktop, move outdated documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to an external hard drive or flash drive, and back up all of your most important information. Do a virus scan and check for spyware. If you find any, remove it. This process is beyond the scope of this article, but an internet search should provide plenty of information.

Wire Clutter
Computers, printers, routers, desk lamps, and other electronic devices all require at least one wire, if not more. Take advantage of spring cleaning to get wire clutter under control. A simple binder clip, twisty tie, or zip tie can do a lot to clear desk and floor space.

Writing Utensils
During spring cleaning, try to find all of your pens and pencils that are on the brink of death, and use them all up before using newer pens. This will reduce the amount of clutter in or on your desk to an extent.

Start Managing Things Electronically
Rather than having a desk calendar or an appointment book in your home office, try using a computer-based calendar system. Rather than leaving sticky notes on your desk, try using one of the many sticky note applications for a computer. This saves money and makes for a cleaner home office.

Rotate Furniture and Decorations
It's nice to have a change of scenery in a home office. Consider swapping any decorations that you have in your office with those in other rooms of your house, and think about whether you'd like to rearrange some of the items in the room. Change can be good.

Vacuum and Dust
Vacuuming and dusting a home office can be stressful to those that are sensitive to dust. Fortunately, spring provides the opportunity to open windows and allow fresh air into a home office. Take advantage of this opportunity.

It's not necessary to scour your home office during spring cleaning, but even small improvements in your workspace can result in improved productivity, a reduction in wasted time, and a more pleasant place to work overall. Have your own tips for doing spring cleaning in a home office? Feel free to share in the form of a comment below. Thanks for reading!