Clear desk gives a clear mind with our cleaning supplies

01 June 2011

Clear up and de-clutter your desk with our cleaning supplies

It is a well known fact that a clear desk equals a clear mind. How can we possibly expect to function with any level of efficiency if our work space is complicated with un-filed documents, waste food wrappers, old pens, out of date mail and inevitably outstanding, perphaps forgotten items of work.

On the other hand if we are working in a clean, clear, streamlined environment where everything has a place, we can expect to achieve greater productivity.

Work rates aside there is another excellent reason to get our bactericidal cleaning supplies out and clean up our desks, studies have shown that our work stations contain nearly 400 times as many microbes at the average toilet seat.

desk cleaning

A desk is capable of supporting 10 million microbes and the average office contains 20,961 microbes per square inch, according to research.

" Desks are really bacteria cafeterias" says Microbiologist Dr Charles Gerba, of the University of Arizona, who carried out the research. The key offenders are telephones, which harbour up to 25,127 microbes per square inch, keyboards 3,295 and computer mice 1,676.

By contrast, the average toilet seat contains 49 microbes per square inch, the survey showed.

"When someone is infected with a cold or flu bug the surfaces they touch during the day become germ transfer points because some cold and flu viruses can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours. "An office can become an incubator."

Dr Gerba's study found bacteria levels increased drastically during the day, peaking after lunch.

Dr Gerba said: "Without cleaning, a small area on your desk or phone can sustain millions of bacteria that could potentially cause illness."

Apparently our desks become germier when the weather is bad as we tend to not go out for lunch choosing to remain at our workstations and eat our food there.

The researchers were surprised to find that womens desks were germier than mens, this was attributed to women having more contact with young children, snacking at the desk more, storing food in the desk and bringing make up and cosmetics to work which are proven to harbour high levels of bacteria.

"Women's desks were dirtier, but they did make an effort to clean them," says Gerba. "Men never seemed to clean anything, and if they did then they used an old towel or something, which made the problem worse."

Proper use of cleaning supplies would reduce the bacteria count, remove food debris and keep the office looking clean and tidy.

Seb Bailey, director of training consultancy The Mind Gym, believes that desk cleanliness is more to do with personality type than gender.

"Polychrons, or multi-taskers, are more likely to have a messier desk as they start a task, then move onto something else, then go back to the first task. Monochrons will start a task and finish it.

"Women have more of a tendency to polychronicity, doing things like sending e-mails while on the phone and eating a sandwich."

Even offices who employed cleaners could still expect to have germy desks as often cleaning staff would not use their cleaning supplies on the desks if there was paper work left out.

So what can you do to keep a cleaner/tidier desk;

It is recemmended that staff work to a clear desk policy when they go home so that cleaning staff can apply their cleaning products and clean the desk with the appropriate bactericidal cleaning supplies.

Besides the cleaning staff cleaning in the evenings it is recommended that staff maintain their own cleaning supplies cupboard where they can store their bactericidal cleaning products and cleaning cloths. That way the desks can be cleaned during the day and maintained to a far better hygienic standard.

We recommend our Spray and Wipe bactericidal fragranced cleaner. Its ideal for cleaning deska and office furniture and will sanitise keyboards, mouse and phone handset effectively.

Keep a good quality hand sanitiser on your desk, this will remind you to use it. We like the Purell Pal it looks great and is a superb quality sanitiser that doesnt dry the skin out.

Stop storing food in your desk and be sure to remove food from the office/fridge on a friday. Remove dirty cups throughout the day and wash them in the kitchen.

Wash your hands properly and often. Ideally use a bactericidal liquid soap and wash your hands for at leist 18-20 seconds before rinsing.

De-clutter and clean your desk on a weekly basis. You will be able to maintain a tidier desk without storing items not required and be able to see where you need to clean...as opposed to cleaning when things start to get a little sticky!