A Clean Space Helps Recharge Your Batteries

You take your winter clothes out of the front closet, bring coats to the dry cleaners and sort out your spring and summer wardrobe. The house gets a thorough spring cleaning and you clear all the winter debris from your yard to prepare for new growth.

Spring cleaning is a rite of passage for those who love the freshness that the new season brings. And while you may take painstaking care of your home, have you spent an equal amount of time and energy giving your office and your business its share of attention? If you’re like most busy entrepreneurs, the answer often is “No.”

Clean Up and Breathe

One of the reasons that spring cleaning is a vital annual ritual is that it gives you the opportunity to rid your home of moldy spores that have been waiting for the temperatures to rise so they can be fruitful and multiply. Your office, where you spend so much of your time, needs the same disinfecting as your home.

So while you’re cleaning the walls and baseboards of your office as part of a yearly spring cleaning, don’t forget to sanitize your:

• Keyboard and mouse, where the winter’s germs have surely found a place to settle
• Bookshelves, where dust mites love to congregate behind the tomes and knick-knacks
• Desk and all that’s accumulated there while you worked so hard all winter
• Chair, on which you sat for endless hours, catching up and paying your dues while you waited for warmer weather to get you outdoors

Spring Cleaning for Windows

Don’t forget about the inside of your computer! That doesn’t mean you necessarily have to take apart your case and give your hard drive a good scrubbing (although people have done that). Instead, consider your files and all that they contain.

When you get the spring cleaning bug, take it to the next level and clean up your cookies, junk files and other temporary files that just get in the way. For example:

• Go through your saved files and delete those items you’ll never need (or want) to look at again. Not only do useless files take up room on your hard drive, they add to the clutter that ends up slowing down your searches and ultimately, your mind. Sometimes, unneeded files take up time too, especially when you forget what’s in them and have to open them to trigger your memory.
• Use an external hard drive or even a thumb drive to store those files that you might need in the future. By keeping them out of your main memory, you clear up storage and still keep them nearby — just in case.
• Consider your client list and begin a purging process to get rid of those customers who aren’t adding sufficient benefits to your business or your bottom line. Spring cleaning is the ideal time to clear out from under those clients who are more pain than profit or who bring you down. One rotten strawberry can ruin the bushel; don’t let one negative client ruin the fun you’re having with your business.

Spruce Up for Spring

Just as you cut fresh flowers to grace your table, bring in some freshness to your office environment. Paint the walls. Put some new artwork up. Exchange your old, tired motivational posters for some new, bright ideas.

Move your desk to give yourself a fresh perspective. If possible, set your chair toward a window (newly cleaned of course). It reduces glare on your computer screen and opens your view, which in turn may open your mind to new ideas.

Get more great ideas from our small business advice section of our blog. Contact us for more information.