Spruce up the study

Following a hard work-out over the summer with open windows and children taking over the computer and the study generally, it is time to give it a good spruce up and clean. MOLLY MAID, the professional domestic cleaning professionals warn that it’s all too easy to forget that electronics also need cleaning too.

Ditch: Sort through old pens, paperwork and correspondence that you have scanned. Nowadays, it is important to try and get away from hard copy filing and instead, try electronic filing!

Recycling bins: Ensure that you have a dedicated bin for recycling items that you no longer need in the office such as a paper, ink cartridges and so on.

Keyboard/ phones: First disconnect the keyboard and then clean your keyboard, mouse and phone with either disinfecting wipes or a cloth gently dipped in white spirit. Secondly, use a paintbrush to clean around your keyboard after having turned it upside down on the desk with a gentle shake to remove the debris. Clean the flat surfaces with the cloth and afterwards use a toothbrush gently dipped in the white spirit (after having pressed the surplus against the side of the bottle) and brush away. For the more delicate areas, use an ear bud dipped in white spirit to give the area a clean.

Office seating: Take the opportunity (as a twice yearly exercise) to take your office chair outside and give it a good wash with warm soapy water. If it’s an upholstered chair, use carpet or upholstery cleaner. Choose an indiscreet spot to check for colourfastness first.

Stay organised: Instead of using an unwieldy white board in your study to stay on top of things, keep a small picture frame on your desk and write your to-do-lists on the glass. Then, simply wipe off and start another list when you need.

Label with style: Use colourful tape and a fine-tipped permanent market to identify cords, making it a cinch to work out what is what.

Drawers: Line your desk drawers with lidless containers of varying sizes and use them to store items such as paperclips, rubber bands, pens and other office bits. Wipes are a fantastic tool too for cleaning the inside of drawers.

Filing magazines: Instead of having numerous magazines cluttering up your office space, file them into subject matter or titles and place them into magazine files or box files.

De-clutter your desktop: Book a regular time or slot in your schedule to sort and tidy all your files on your desktop on your computer. Consider investing in an external hard drive or extra cloud or dropbox space for storing information and back-ups.

Do NOT try the following:

• Use glass cleaner on screens. It can destroy protective coating.
• Use your phone or tablet in the bathroom. You are welcoming unwanted germs to your devices.
• Spray cleaning solution directly onto surfaces. It can damage screens and get under your keyboard.
• Get the trackball on your mouse wet.
• Use vacuum brushes directly on electronics. The bristles could scratch the surface, and static discharge could cause damage to delicate internal circuits.

Good luck and enjoy your clean and tidy study!

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