You Might Miss Some of the Grossest Things When Spring Cleaning

Have you ever really thought about what could be on (or in) your keyboard?

Spring cleaning usually means organizing closets, driving all those boxes labeled “donate” to your local clothing drive, washing down patio furniture, and other big, highly visible projects. So it’s easy to forget about the little things that keep cluttering our lives in our work environment. Here are some unexpected items you should organize, purge, check or spruce up this spring.

Cleaning Supplies

Before you dive into spring cleaning, focus your energy on clearing out your actual cleaning supplies. Good Housekeeping notes that household items actually have shelf lives:

• Laundry detergent keeps for six months
• Fabric softener keeps for one year
• Dish soap will last up to a year and a half
• Dishwasher detergent lasts three months
• Disinfectant lasts two years
• Multi-surface cleaners keep for up to two years
• Metal polish lasts for two years, but throw it away sooner if it’s lumpy

Emergency Kit

Everyone should have an emergency kit, whether you live in a place with hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, or any possibility of an unexpected disaster (i.e., every place on earth). If you checked that off your list a few years ago, make sure your batteries still work and your food and medical supplies haven’t expired. Today many of us work from our vehicles so while you’re at it, make a similar emergency kit for your vehicle in case you ever get stuck in an emergency situation.

Your Purse/Bag/Briefcase

Purge your bag of the receipts, gum wrappers, empty mascara tubes, broken hair ties, stale protein bars, receipts, old papers & files and the entire GDP of California in pennies (your back will thank you). Then wipe out the inside & outside with a sanitizer wipe & refill with the essentials.

Car Trunk and Glove Compartment

Empty your trunk of the bag of ill-fitting clothes you meant to take to Goodwill, water bottles, shoes you forgot you owned, and clean up any spills or whatever else landed in there. While you’re at it, it’s time to face the music and pay those parking tickets you shoved into your glove compartment.

Condiments

Do your employees remember buying the mustard, catsup, mayonnaise, etc. that are sitting in your break room fridge door right now? Probably not… can you say YUCK!?

Make it a company policy that everything needs to be marked with a permanent marker the date it was placed in the refrigerator. Keep a marker on a string attached to the refrigerator for this purpose. Here’s a list of food shelf-life, that you might find handy & can laminate to post next to the marker:

• Jams/jellies last one year
• Mayonnaise lasts two to three months after the use by date
• Hot sauce lasts five years
• Pickles last one year
• Soy sauce lasts two years
• Mustard lasts one year
• Ketchup lasts six months

Your Keyboard and Mouse

Not to gross you out, but your keyboard and mouse are cesspools of germs and bacteria. Give your keyboard a full clean (not just a cursory wipe-down), and place some disinfecting wipes on your desk to remind you to make this a regular habit.

Your Computer Files

Unless you’re incredibly disciplined, your computer could probably use some organization. Clean up your desktop, but then go deeper: Put completed projects onto external hard drives or the cloud, go through the hundreds of screenshots you can’t remember why you saved, and clean up whatever app you use to keep random notes.