These Things Should Be Cleaned Everyday In Your Home Office

Learning how to create a home office is only one step in building a productive workspace: you'll also need to learn how to maintain it. Don't worry — you don't need to set an entire day aside to focus on cleaning your home office. While this ritual can help you reset for the week if that's your style, you can also adopt a daily cleaning routine that spaces out your chores and keeps mess to a minimum, starting with a handful of common tasks.

Fortunately, unless you're working with a multi-purpose space, there's typically less to clean in your home office compared to other areas — no bathtubs or toilets to scrub, sinks of dishes to empty, or beds to make. However, there may be more tasks than first meets the eye, from cleaning those easy-to-miss areas like light switches or knobs to wiping down your desk. By squeezing chores like these into your work day, whether by taking a few minutes on your lunch break or right after you log off for the night, you can curate a space where you'll want to be productive without needing to spend your entire weekend cleaning for the week ahead.

If you work the typical eight-hour workday, then that can add up to over three dozen hours each week spent at your computer. This means hours of touching your keyboard, mouse, and other electronics, which can hold onto a lot of grime and germs. As a result, taking a second to wipe down and sanitize your electronics each day can help contribute to a cleaner workspace while also reducing potentially harmful germs. Just make sure to follow the proper steps to safely clean your computer and other electronics and unplug them beforehand.

There are a few other high-traffic areas you may want to consider cleaning every day in your home office as well — think door knobs, drawer pulls, or even light switches. While this practice may only seem usual in a shared space, such as communal offices where there may be a bigger concern with spreading illness, cleaning high-traffic areas around your home office can also help keep dust at bay. This saves you the hassle of scrubbing through grime for spotless hardware later on.

When you're hard at work during the day, it's easy for trash to pile up. You may have a few remnants of trash from your lunch leftover, or a busy day could have left your rubbish bin full. Taking the time to pick up any trash and dump it appropriately helps reduce any clutter around your desk, giving you room to breathe and knock out your to-do list. It can also help keep any unpleasant odors to a minimum and even reduce common household pests in the instance of food-related trash.

Once you have trash out of the way, you can easily remove any other clutter that doesn't belong in your workspace, such as dishes that need to be returned to the kitchen — especially if you enjoy a fresh cup of coffee or tea to get you through your day. Placing your items back into their proper homes doesn't just help give you reap the benefits of decluttering, such as better concentration and reduced stress, but it also makes it easier to find your belongings when it comes time to use them again.

Depending on your type of work, you may rely on a variety of stationery and supplies to get your day done, like pens and scissors or sticky notes. Leaving this on your desk can be easy, but it can minimize how much space is available on your desk for working and overall make focusing a difficult ordeal. Fortunately, this task takes just a moment, whether you're placing your supplies into a drawer or a designated organizer on your desk. You can even opt for a catch-all container for paperwork to sort at a later time.

With your office supplies tidy, this can be a good time to clean your desk as well. In a communal space, you may want to use a disinfectant. However, when cleaning at home when you're the only one using your space, cleaning your desk with a mild cleaner and rag will often suffice. After all, the main goal here is to remove any grime that may have occurred during the day (you don't want to leave coffee rings to sit and stain) as well as prevent dust from building up.

When it comes to cleaning your home office, the focus is on creating a hygienic space that lends to better production. While that's true for wiping down your computer chair at the end of the day as well, it can also help improve your chair's lifespan. If your chair is left neglected for too long, it can also lead to odors and even a potential risk for allergies, all of which can make the time you need to spend in your home office uncomfortable.

How often you need to clean your office's flooring depends on how often you use your space. If you're only working from home a few times a week, you may be able to get away with sweeping only as needed. However, if your home office is a high traffic area, sweeping may be a daily need, especially if you step into the room and find it smells stale or has visible dirt and debris. For home offices with carpet, you can often skip on daily vacuuming and instead add it to your schedule a few times a week.