Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Home Office

As many employees are working remotely for at least part of their work week, there’s increased importance on home office organization and cleanliness.  After all, most of us probably don’t have a cleaning crew that comes in to keep things tidy during off-hours.

Having a clean and organized office has benefits that go beyond the aesthetic.  An organized office environment can help increase your productivity, provide a sense of propriety, and create an environment where you’re less likely to get sick.

When you work from home, you control how often your home office is cleaned, disinfected, and sanitized — choosing everything from when you dust and vacuum to when you wipe down your keyboard and take out the trash. Whether your home office is large or small, here are some spring cleaning tips to help you refresh your workspace.

Bring Order to Your Home Office

Before you start cleaning, it's good to bring order to your home office. Home offices can be catch-all rooms. When you get a piece of mail, you might place it in a pile rather than file it away. This can be due to other pressing matters, distractions, or you earmarked the mail to look at later. There might be pens and notepads stashed away in any corner, ready for a quick note during a phone call, or outdated technology sitting in piles.

To truly spring clean a home office, it's important to try to take the entropy and break it down, removing the chaos (even if it's organized) and creating a clean slate, which can help make it easier to stay focused, organized, and uncluttered.

• Consider what's in the office and why. If it belongs in your living room, kitchen, or bedroom, move the item to where it belongs.
• Sort through office supplies. Put all pens, notepads, sticky notes, and wires together. Do all of the papers picked up at the latest show need to be kept? Any documents that can be scanned and tossed (or shredded) will eliminate extra paper.
• Organize items based on functionality. If certain items are used daily, weekly, or rarely, you can sort them by use. A label maker may not be used as often as a scanner, and neither might be used as often as a printer.
• Sort through paper clutter.  That interesting article in a magazine can be scanned or found online, old bills can be scanned to PDF and then shredded, and any remaining papers can be sorted and stored in a filing cabinet rather than in piles around the room.  
• Add a recycling bin. Focusing on what items can be recycled can help make getting rid of extraneous paper easier and more eco-conscious.

Create Different Areas for Different Tasks

Creating different areas for tasks through mapping is a design idea that can lead to a more cohesive home office.

For instance, if an office is divided into five zones -- computer, phone, research, supplies, and archives -- it's possible to keep everything together related to those locations, allowing the focus to be on the task at hand.

If something doesn't need to be in the home office space, move it to another room. Create a filing system for organizing incoming papers, paperwork that needs to be kept, and to-do lists that aren't digital.

Redesigning a Small Office

When working from home, it’s important to have the right office furniture — including lighting, storage, and seating.

A comfortable office chair can help provide back support, allowing you to focus on work rather than discomfort. Read our article on choosing the perfect office chair for guidance. 

Desk and table lamps can help provide adequate lighting when working at night or in a home office lacking natural light. Energy-efficient LED lamps and those with USB ports can also be good for an office setting, as are gooseneck lamps or lamps with swing arms, which can be adjusted for computer screen glare and to light different areas of a room. 

Wall shelves can provide added storage space for small offices, allowing books, a stapler, tape, and other small items to have a home rather than being stored in a junk drawer. Built-in shelving units, floating shelves, cubes, cabinets, and baskets allow easy sorting in a small space.

A desk designed for a tight space, with storage or adjusts into a standing desk, can help transform a room into an office. Different materials, such as fabric, laminate, metal, mixed materials, plastic, processed wood, and natural wood, can fit various preferences.

Office decor -- whether through area rugs, wall art, or plants -- can help give a small room a more formal feel while giving the space personality.

Where to Start When Spring Cleaning a Home Office

You may not know where to start when it comes to spring cleaning a home office. After getting rid of clutter, organizing tools and supplies, and getting rid of actual trash, it’s time to pull out the cleaning supplies and get to cleaning and disinfecting. 

Professional cleaners suggest "task cleaning" - doing one chore throughout the house before starting the next. This could be dusting every room and then mopping the floors, rather than dusting a room, mopping the floor, and then going back to do the same thing in the next room.

When cleaning an office area or a small home office, having a plan of attack for general cleaning can make the process easier.

• Dust the room from top to bottom.
• Clean soft surfaces - neaten any pillows, vacuum office chairs, and scrub any sitting surfaces.
• Clean any windows, mirrors, and screens.
• Disinfect and wipe down any hard surfaces, especially door handles, light switches, and phones.
• Vacuum or mop the floor.

While cleaning can be a solitary activity, many people find lively music helps keep their spirits up as they clean.

Cleaning Products for Your Home Office

Cleaning products are needed to truly clean and disinfect a home office after organizing and tidying up.

All-purpose spray cleaners, glass cleaners, and cleaning wipes are all general cleaning products that make cleaning an office easier and more efficient. For office products, special screen cleaners can help protect electronics while removing fingerprints and dust.

For sensitive noses or places without good air circulation, unscented cleaners can help keep chemical odors down. Cleaners with various other scents, such as floral, fresh, citrus, clean, fruit, linen, mint, nutty, and vanilla, are also available. For those trying to keep a greener home and work area, more eco-conscious cleaners and supplies available. 

Keeping Clean After Spring Cleaning

Maintaining a clean home office after spring cleaning can sometimes be challenging, but it can be made easier if done mindfully. Take the time to put away mail as it comes in, take the trash out on trash day (instead of waiting for the bin to become full), run the shredder weekly, evaluate whether something new really needs to be brought into the office, and phase out old and obsolete technology. Keeping up with cleaning can make it possible to keep a small office or home office clean and organized. 

After a long, cold winter, spring cleaning offers the opportunity to renew a workspace, increasing efficiency, organization, and cleanliness. There are countless options available to make your office a productive space.

About the Author 

Julie Unger is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience, specializing in education and science.

All content provided herein is for educational purposes only. It is provided as is, and neither the author nor Office Depot warrants the accuracy of the information provided, nor do they assume any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein.