What Works {for me} Wednesday: The Dirt

Today I present to you a new blog theme when I’m feeling more wordy on a Wednesday than “wordless” ...

Throughout my thirty-something years on this earth, I’ve experimented with a lot of various different products and routines. Some of them were successes, some of them failures. I thought I’d share the successes that work for me, on the chance that perhaps they would work for you, too.

Today’s What Works: A Dirty Little Secret.

The secret is – for the last hour of work on Wednesdays (usually), I don’t work.

For my work schedule, Wednesdays are typically the day of the week where I have the least meetings, the least deadlines, and the least stress. So instead of working on “work”, I work on spending the last hour of the day scrubbing my office. We have a cleaning crew come in every Mon/Wed/Fri. However, I’m convinced all they do is take out the trash. On Wednesdays, I break out the cleaning supplies and scrub – and I mean everything. I break out the window/glass cleaner, wood duster, and all-purpose cleaner and hit every surface I can reach. I collect the recycling to take home (our company doesn’t offer it, so I opted to do it for myself), take a trip to the shred bin, and make sure my trash cans are placed outside my door for pick up. Wednesday afternoon is also the time of week I get caught up with any filing I’ve let pile up on my desk. And lastly, before leaving for the night, I stick a note on the door asking the “crew” to please vacuum the office.

Why I Love It:

• When I come in on Thursday, it always looks and smells great, and I’m ready to face the last two days of the week.
• Things stay cleaner longer. Since I took over the cleaning, the dust and grunge has reduced significantly.
• I don’t spend time throughout the week cleaning bits and pieces. I know that no matter how dusty something is I’ll get to it on Wednesday, and I don’t have to interrupt the project I’m working on in order to clean something.
• Since I wait until the last hour of the day, my cleaning time needs to be productive in order to leave work on time.  I can't get lost in some major cleaning project - it's focused filing and cleaning to get the job done. 
• I control the cleaning products being used in my office. I can use my faves like method or Mrs. Meyers.