Richard Nassif

While working requires a little mess here and there, it’s no excuse to leave things tangled and dismantled forever. You may have a proper system in your desk, but you might overlook the crumbs and the leftovers that you may have left under a mess of deadlines and wires. When there’s a mess of crumbs, there will be insects and rodents – meaning they might nibble or crawl on your important documents and your computer wiring.

The restless system of rodents and their adventures to find the best crumbs will always get in the way of your productivity and will likely get you sick. If you’re not fond of cleaning, these steps will definitely motivate you in fixing the small system you have set up for a while. While it might help you remember where you put your items, you might find yourself in a bit of a pinch when something is not working like how they should be.

Clean and Declutter Your Desk With These Tips:

• Completely empty your desk. You may be discouraged to do this first step, but if you have noticed that some of your stuff might have disappeared, it’s time to check for the heavy piles of paper on your desk. But don’t just toss the items somewhere, designate a specific container for paper clips, wires, pens, and others to make sure that there will be no missing piece later on. You might actually find that missing flash drive or that pen Bryan lent you years ago.
• Disinfect your table. Before you even begin to imagine putting items back on your table, it’s the best time to get rid of the accumulated dust and the water or coffee stains you might have left unnoticed for a while – it will make you feel safe and more comfy working on your station. No need to fear what’s under that yellowed pile of paper no longer!
• Assess your items carefully. Do you really need 100 paper clips? Maybe it’s time to give up items you don’t use anymore and throw the broken items in the trash where they belong. You might even figure out what you actually need for your desk and maybe convince you to use more of the items you have in your drawers. You have more pins and a corkboard? Use that instead of a sticky note that keeps on falling on your desk.
• Consider making or bringing your own organisers. Do you have a ton of unused shoe boxes and accessory boxes at home? If not, you can use the organisers you can check in any stores near you. These will help you sort out your important documents and hopefully not let you lose files while working as well. You can dedicate specific drawers for papers, wires, or make divisions for each one for an efficient work.
• Make it a habit. There’s no use cleaning now if you let it go to shambles in the future – this will only be effective if you make it a habit. Schedule your next cleaning schedule and maybe rearrange your items to make it more spacious and cleaner while you work. It will make you more proactive in accepting and doing tasks – plus it’s a mental cleanse  for your eyes as well. Cleaner space – mental relaxation.

Whenever you think of cleaning your house, you think of the typical ammonia, bleach, disinfectant sprays, and a lot more, only to find that they are not as safe or effective as they seem. You have to put your back into it and some elbow grease, but it feels like the quality of the item itself is affected. You stop defeated and you throw in the towel.

But before you throw a tantrum or buy something to hopefully cover the permanent stain on the floor, you can try out these ordinary household items that you can find anywhere in the supermarket that might clean your items safely and effectively. Whether or not you have these in your cupboards or drawers, maybe you will reconsider getting an ample supply of these cheaper and safer alternatives.

Common Household Items for Cleaning Alternatives:

• The amazing combination of water and vinegar. Aside from being cheap and readily available in your kitchen, this combination actually clears stains and kills bacteria and germ build up on mostly touched surfaces. Compared to strong cleaning chemicals you can buy in any hardware stores, this cleaning mix actually keeps your surfaces safe and retain its quality.
• Power of steam. Steam has magical powers – they can iron out your clothes perfectly and rid of mold build up in the corner of your bathroom. It’s a nasty collection of grime and a steam cleaning machine easily gets rid of it. But for this hack, you can use steam to clean a microwave – a mixture of  two tablespoons of white vinegar, drops of essential oil with water and let it run for 5 minutes. It will be easily cleaned with a rag and your microwave will smell better – thanks to the essential oil of your choice.
• Toothbrush power. Hard to reach corners? Tiny dents and crevices in your furniture that you can’t seem to clean? Vacuum can’t get it all out? This handy dandy toothbrush is not only for your mouth, but for tiny spaces and gaps that needs careful scrubbing. You can also use the soft kind of toothbrush to get rid of the dirt build up in between the computer or laptop keys – you’ll feel the comfort of working on your computer again!
• Hairdryer magic. As you get busier around the house, accidents are not uncommon in the common household – especially with kids. Be prepared for random spills on your beautiful wooden table, or maybe on the hardwood floors. Simply grab your hairdryer, turn it to the highest setting, and let water stains be a thing of the past!
• Lint roll away your problems.  Since these lamps stand from floor to ceiling, they are likely magnets to floating dust and accumulate them to dust bunnies – which will be a trigger for endless sneezing and coughing. After a vacuum, you can use a lint roller to remove the smaller specs of dust that the vacuum wasn’t able to reach. It will ensure that your lampshade will be safe and clean for a while.
• The yummy grapefruit. Aside from being a snack or breakfast juice, this fruit is actually handy as a cleaning material. You can cut the grapefruit in half, sprinkle some rock salt on top and begin scrubbing soap scum and hard water stains on your faucet and bathtub. It will make your bathroom sparkling clean and smell heavenly as well – plus, it’s way cheaper than buying professional grade cleaning materials!

If you own a health-based establishment, what you need to know during the cold months would be the helpless spread of germs and bacteria that could make your patients sicker and your staff sick. If in a small scale clinic, the chances is significantly higher since there’s no open space or an available window to open in case there are sneezing or coughing patients in the waiting room. Unlike in hospitals where there can be open spaces to roam around and breathe fresh air, smaller establishments sadly circulate the airborne bacteria and germs around.

However, it can easily be avoided with proper preparation for the flu season. You can teach your employees or practise it yourself to avoid the spread of germs and bacteria. This will involve deep cleaning and practises that would help stop or control the spread of the flu.

What is a Seasonal Flu

Like most of the things that comes with the change of weather and climate, germs and bacteria are spread in the air, causing for the occasional sneezing and coughing around. It usually peaks during the months of December to February – when the climate is usually cold and gloomy. It can sometimes evolve into something more serious. The best way to avoid this in the first place is to prepare yourself and your staff for it.

There are symptoms you can look out for, and it can perhaps help your employees distinguish it. It might even help you help them more by suggesting remedies to fully cure them from it. It will also be handy if you can contain the spread as well. Here are the following symptoms you need to keep an eye out for:

• Fever or chills
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Cough
• Body aches
• Sore throat
• Runny or stuffy nose

To avoid the spread of the disease, you can also implement proper cleaning procedures that could hopefully eliminate the germs and bacteria. This should at least contain the possible spread of bacteria that might jeopardise your patients’ health and your employee’s. Here are the best cleaning practices you can do:

• Ensure that you clean the surfaces, especially those items that are passed around and used by many, and especially those tables and phones. Make sure you use a disinfectant to clean it properly.
• Vacuum and lint roll carpets and other velvet upholstered furniture to ensure there are no mites and bugs in there. If possible, dry it out under the sun to kill the pests inside and hopefully deodorise it too.
• Ensure that you clean and empty the trash cans daily to avoid the accumulation of used tissues and medical wastes. You also have to make sure that these wastes are separated in order to avoid contamination and infestation.

Who doesn’t love the holidays? It’s a myriad of carols, Christmas shopping, decorations, lights, and just fun all around. It might be the best way to reconnect with old friends and distant family members over a holiday dinner and exchange gifts. But sadly, it might not happen if you find yourself coughing, sneezing, and feverish before the holidays and secured your post on your bed instead of preparing Christmas dinners.

December is always the month of exchanges – whether it’s bad or good, and it’s always important to keep yourself from getting sick in these gatherings. Why do you get sick easily during December? It’s actually the exchange of pathogens in gatherings, or maybe a weakened immune system due to the cold. It’s always important to wash your hands whenever you need to shake someone else’s hand or whenever there’s unnecessary contact.

You also need to keep your guests from getting sick too – make sure that your surroundings are clean and well-maintained before you invite them over in your house or office. You don’t want to be the source of the disease, so make sure that you deep clean your house and office before the party.

How to Avoid Getting Sick During the Holidays:

• Hand washing. This might be the most common solution to everything, but the power of cleaning your hands properly is more powerful than you thought. You have most of the germs on your hands due to constant interaction, work, and other social events – and it’s almost unavoidable to catch something from someone you shook hands with earlier. You can also pack sanitary gel or spray on alcohol if ever you can’t go to the nearest washroom.
• The handy flu shot. Give your body the best line of defense by getting a flu shot before the holiday parties and business happen. A flu shot takes effect a few weeks after and it would be too late if you do it during December. For some, people might feel lethargic and sick after the shot itself, so perhaps take a day off and rest it out to feel good again.
• Cleaning shared items and spaces. Places like the company pantry and copier machine are prone to storing bacteria and germs. Unlike to contrary belief, these germs and bacteria can survive a long duration of time – from days to weeks. To avoid the spread of bacteria and germs, ensure that these places are well-maintained with disinfectant chemicals and cleaned regularly. While it doesn’t overall make the shared spaces completely germ free, it might lessen the chances of contracting diseases from using shared items.
• Avoid sharing items as much as possible. Do you have that officemate or employee who keeps on borrowing random things like pens, scissors, and even your stress ball? Maybe it’s time to say no – it only takes a few coughs on their hands to give you a cold as well. No one wants to get sick nor welcome the new year with a stuffed nose and an itchy throat.

In every company, it is almost inevitable for people to get sick and interact. Employees go through a lot of things whether they like it or not – and it has then caused a couple of coughs and sneezes in the office. Whether it may be a simple handshake or sharing of the company landline phones, it’s almost impossible to avoid the spread of germs. Before you feel hopeless, don’t fret – there’s an effective way to cut down the frequency of contact or avoid germs in the office.

While most colds exists during winter, it could happen anytime whenever someone has it. Within the day, someone is bound to catch the cold that seemed to ping pong around the office. It’s always a domino effect in a closed environment – expect people to cough and sniff here and there after one caught a cold. While it might be challenging to keep your health in tip top shape, you can still do something about it.

Here are the Best Ways to Avoid Germs:

• Hand washing. Even as a kid, it has been a lesson taught by your older sibling, parents, and even teachers to wash before eating or doing anything. It’s a simple act of washing your hands but it has an effect that could keep you healthy and lessen your chances of getting sick. Since most of the time it’s your hands that does more work and handling – so it’s only normal that it gets dirtier than the most of your body. You should always wash your hands after sneezing, coughing, or even picking up something on the ground – always bear in mind that there’s a lot of germs and bacteria you’ve picked up throughout the day.
• Proper cleaning. Creating a safer workspace for your employees is the best way to maintain the productivity up high. However, you can’t get that until you make your office safe for them – meaning you should make cleaning a priority. By simply disinfecting everything they use afterwards creates a safer environment for people. It will also lessen the chances of spreading the germs and bacteria in the area. Cleaning out the ventilation, humidifier, carpets, and any other areas that commonly stores dirt and germs should be checked daily.
• Avoid the habit of touching your face. While it has been a well-known habit for people to touch their face at almost anytime after handling any shared item, it should be stopped. If you don’t like the idea of acne and whiteheads everywhere on your face, you should make it a habit to wash your hands first if ever you can’t really handle the urge to touch any part of your face. But make it a habit to not touch your face on a daily basis.
• Send the sick employees home. They won’t be able to focus because of the stuffed nose and the constant coughing, so why should they stay in the office if they are sick? The best way to keep the healthy employees healthy is to send the sick employees home. The usual office environment would be a centralised air conditioning without any open windows, meaning there will be a huge chance of spreading the bacteria and germs all around.

In every office, the company values their employees in one way or another – they are after all the main reason why the company still exists. There will be a lot of solutions they present whenever the company is in a tight spot and you can rely on them to shift the numbers to something better. While your value for them is palpable, it can only go so far until they get sick.

As a leader of the company, you always tell your employees to stay at home if they catch a cold or fever to avoid the spread of germs and bacteria. You then realise that people still get sick even after your strict implementation of health issues rules. You might be thinking why this is a common occurrence in the office even with the best care provided, employees still tend to get sick.

There has been a study done about people who usually get sick in the same building and eventually almost everyone complain about health problems. This has been dubbed as the Sick Building Syndrome  – it is the feeling of ill health and the main cause of absenteeism and has jeopardised a lot of careers over the years. But this can be combated by knowing the culprits that cause this.

Common Reasons Why Employees Get Sick:

• Bad Ventilation. This is usually a culprit to people who are working in an older building, and has been a source of breathing problems. There’s a long term build up of carbon monoxide and other harmful compounds. It will circulate eventually and most likely develop breathing and respiratory illnesses, and worsen it for people who already has this. As the CEO or the owner of the company, you should ensure that your employees are healthy – meaning you should check the condition of the building you are in now.
• Stress. This is a common culprit as to why people refuse to go to work at most times and would rather curl up in bed and sleep. While those numbers are important, you should also consider how it affects your employees. When stress piles up, you can expect them to experience physical health problems as well as mental health as well. Building up good and trusting relationships with your employees will hopefully lessen the amount of stress in the workplace.
• Dirty Floors. You are peacefully eating lunch, and then you saw that huge patch of dark entity on the floor – of course it will dampen your appetite. Aside from the grotesque image, this is actually a source of diseases that would make your employees ill for a long period of time. The best way to remedy this is to hire professional cleaning services to ensure that the floors are clean and presentable.
• Overcrowded. While it is indeed a nice way to get tasks done on time, hiring more people in a tiny room will make them feel sick and suffocated. While your reason for this is to save money on getting a larger space, you will eventually lose these people and maybe experience a dent in productivity due to absences. Overcrowded rooms mean that the spread of bacteria is faster and more dangerous than usual.
• No Natural Light. A small room with the harsh fluorescent light will be a source of headaches and sleeplessness. They will likely fall asleep in the office and possibly neglect their tasks. Research shows that offices with natural light filtering in means they have better sleep quality, longer sleep duration, and are basically happier and more productive than those who are always exposed to artificial light. You might consider drawing the curtains and blinds back!

When you’re entertaining clients, it’s always a good thing to show your best side and ensure that they are comfortable and relaxed. But when you have crusty furniture and darkened dinky tiles in the comfort room, it’s hard to put your mind at ease – so the need for proper cleaning requires proper planning procedures. You need to check your entire establishment and even smell if something needs to be cleaned properly – you don’t want to be called a negligent CEO of your company.

How Often Should You Deep Clean?

Managing a company is one thing, but for giving a thought about the how often you need to clean each furniture might be a challenging task for you. However, it can be done – you can come up with a plan to have your staff follow a strict cleaning regimen and maybe even call up a professional cleaning service every month or three months to ensure there is no germ and bacteria build up.But the real question is when you should do it – studies show that the build up of bacteria on different furniture varies, so knowing those specific items would just do the trick.

The Furniture and Their Cleaning Schedule:

• Microwave. It should be cleaned every week, or immediately if something happened to explode inside – and you don’t want molds or maggots. At the same time, you also need to deodorise your microwave so it doesn’t discourage your employees in using it. A clean microwave means healthier employees, so making cleanliness a priority lessens the chances of sick leaves and absences.
• Refrigerator. It should be done every month. While the refrigerator might be a cold and harsh place, bacteria and germs find ways to thrive in this chilling appliance. They might even crawl in your employee’s food – something you don’t want. To make a happier and productive workplace, your employees should be healthy and happy while working. Make sure you have your cleaning staff cover everything in the refrigerator as molds can sprout if left unnoticed.
• Toilets. Every week is the ideal schedule of cleaning these porcelain thrones. Since it’s a shared toilet for more than one employee, it’s a must to keep this clean and pristine. Deep cleaning the toilet requires special chemicals to remove that disgusting stain and lingering smell forever – so make sure that your staff wears mask and proper gear to handle them as fumes and the acid itself is dangerous.
• Pillows. In every lobby, there’s always couch pillows that random people seem to enjoy touching and lying on if they can’t help it. The best way to keep them safe and pristine if ever a kid lays their hands on it would be to deep clean it every quarter of the year. There will be bed bugs and mites that you don’t want people to suffer while they are in your company. It will also give you a bad name as well. It would ne
• Carpets. Naturally, these decorative faux fur or Arabian carpets on the floor are dirty since they experience foot traffic as well. The standard measure is to vacuum it every day and deep clean it every six to twelve months to avoid the accumulation of dust that would be puffed in the air whenever someone steps on them, plus the molds doesn’t make it charming. Carpets would be more ideally cleaned by professionals to retain the colour and quality of it.
• Blinds or Curtains.  This should be cleaned properly every three to six months, and dusted at least weekly. The board rooms usually contain these massive blinds that they rarely use, so it naturally gathers dust – you don’t want allergens flying everywhere during a meeting. You also might want to spray a deodoriser in the room to make it smell fresh and clean.

In every office, there will be this one toilet they refuse to use because of its notoriety of being the dirtiest in the comfort room. It obviously caused discomfort for employees and inconvenience for you – there will be longer queues, lesser time done for work, and perhaps the unlucky employee gets sick for using it. While the thought of cleaning toilets is disgusting, you should never leave it as is – it has a big effect on the overall performance of the company.

Why Is Cleaning the Toilet That Important?

While you might or might not know, these porcelain thrones are known to host various amounts of disease-carrying bacteria and germs – meaning a lot can get sick by just sitting on them. Aside from that, the overall appearance of the toilet might discourage people from doing their business there – they might hold it in or find the nearest comfort room to ease themselves. It would mean a dent on productivity and overall performance of the employees.

Below Are the Reasons Why You Should Always Clean Toilets:

1. Clean means safe. When you clean your comfort room stalls properly, your employees will have no problem or trouble about it and might even finish their business quick without hesitation. They will be able to go to the comfort room with ease and they don’t have to think twice about it.
2. Healthier environment. If you religiously clean the comfort room – especially the toilets – it would mean that they won’t be too scared to enter the comfort room. They might even start a healthier habit to keep the place clean and pristine. It would also help if the comfort room doesn’t stink – meaning your employees will appreciate their time there and feel completely refreshed when they go back to their duties.
3. Lesser sick leaves. While sick leaves are unavoidable since there will come a time when an employee gets struck with a fever or bad cold, it would definitely lessen the chances of your employees getting sick. They will definitely be healthier if they use toilets that are religiously and thoroughly cleaned after each day. It may be a hassle, but the return of investment is way bigger than your expenses for a cleaner office.
4. Everyone is happier. Not only employees use your toilets, your clients as well. Who wants to go inside a war torn and apocalyptic comfort room? No one would ever dare enter it – especially since they don’t know what happened to it. Cleaning every nook of your office, especially the porcelain throne, means you can ensure the morale of your employees and maybe start develop their habit of becoming cleaner and healthier. It’s a good domino effect!
5. Better impression. It’s likely that your customers or clients who have been to your toilet will have a better impression of your company. They will be able to appreciate the fact that you made sure that the toilets used by your employees and customers are clean – meaning you care. It gives your company a boosted trust and better image that your company does indeed care.

In the office, there will be some equipment that will be shared by other employees – items like the photocopier machine, printer, phones, and the list goes on. While it is indeed a normal occurrence, there is more to it than just your usual office function. The reason why the office gets sick easily is because of that one sick employee who used the shared items in the office and accidentally spread the bacteria all around.

Why should you keep your office clean? In addition to the fact that the office seem more bright and productive when it’s clean, it also helps stop the unnecessary spread of bacteria. May it be from the keyboard of their computers to the desks they use, the bacteria lingers if you don’t clean it properly – it might even manifest there and it will eventually develop into something bad.

Why You Should Clean Equipment:

• Cut back the spread of diseases. Diseases come in microscopic bacteria and germs, and they will eventually accumulate on a most used item and eventually spread. The best way to avoid this is to clean the equipment as much as possible. Use microfibre cloth on keyboards, screens, and phones to get the dusty particles off. Never use water or alcohol that might damage the device entirely. Just clean it daily and as much as possible.
• Make the equipment last longer. When there is a manifestation of something icky in between keys and dials, expect for that gadget to malfunction earlier than intended. To make the most of your gadget, make sure you clean it weekly to avoid the spread and manifestation of germs and molds. Besides, who doesn’t want to use a seemingly brand new equipment? It will inspire your employees to work harder and better.
• Increase productivity. A clean office is always attractive to people, and it has always been a great way to convince your employees to work harder and better. By providing them a neat place to work on, you can also inspire your employees to be better and produce more results. A healthy workplace is a productive place, so the cleaner the better.

Proper Cleaning Procedures You Need to Know:

• Microfibre cloth should be mainly used for equipment like the computer monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse. Make sure that it is dry when you use it on the monitor since it will smudge the screen and might even stain. It might also destroy one of the buttons if ever it dripped on one of them.
• Some items like the mouse can be sprayed lightly with alcohol or disinfectant spray to avoid the spread of bacteria. It can also help if you have a special sticky putty you can roll on the keyboard to get rid of the particles stuck in between, or go for a small paint brush to get rid of it.
• Items like phones and shared touchscreen devices can be cleaned with disinfectant wipes or lightly damp microfibre to stop the accumulation of bacteria. It will also keep the touchscreen devices clean and clear to work on.

• Linoleum. This is probably the most common floor next to tiles because of its affordable pricing as well as its versatile designs. Like most floors, linoleum is actually durable and ready to take on the stress and foot traffic for most stores and other public locations. For cleaning them, you should always sweep away all the dust and other sharp particles that could possibly puncture or maybe even tear the flooring – which is something you don’t want to happen.

• Wood. Almost all of the fancy restaurants have wooden floors, and it does increase the glamour of the place and adds more sophistication to the place. It might be uncommon to be seen in other establishments due to its expensive price, wooden floors are actually beautiful and adds character to the room. But to be honest, maintaining wooden flooring is a bit challenging compared to the other two.

• Tiles. This is basically the most common flooring in corporations or any establishments today – and there’s a reason as to why that is. Tiles are easier to maintain and clean since they have a smooth surface and can be wiped with anything – even dried stains can be remedied right away with the proper tools. To keep your tiled floor clean, you need to vacuum or sweep the dirt off or crumbs in order to avoid accumulation that will turn to something nasty.

Humans are known to have improve over the years, and since the improvement, there have been carbon prints as well as any traces of pollution that dented natural resources gravely. It has dented the nation’s economy as well as ballooned the debt to repair what was severely broken. However, there was a small compromise that actually helps a little bit to nature – participating in Earth Day.

Earth Day started on 1970’s after United States of America’s declaration of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act after getting a landslide of feedbacks for a need of environmental action. It has then a most practised event that has then inspired youngsters to participate in order to be ‘in the trend’.

Here are the reasons why you should go celebrate earth day:

• Recycle. Recycling items means you can finally declutter the mess in the office and even inspire your staff to do the same. Proposing to properly separate biodegradable from not is something your employees will take home – meaning a healthier lifestyle.
• Crafty. Sometimes, the office needs a fun decoration that shows off the talents of your employees, and it actually makes the office seem cheerful. If your office has a daycare, it’s a fun way to teach the kids how to do fun projects.
• Exercise. It has to be a lifestyle – you can keep doing this in order to stay fit and even save up from those emergency cabs and trains. It might even convince you to give up driving everyday to work! It will save you a ton and give you a fit physique.
• Organic. Using organic products may not be ideal for you when you first got it – but it actually helps you in the long run. Using organic products – from cleaning to soaps – is actually a lot healthier and that means lesser sick days for your staff as well.
• Washable containers. You might think that getting paper plates and utensils is better, but actually it will make the environment suffer. Instead of providing disposable utensils, go for washable utensils that can be reused for a long while. It will save you a couple of bucks as well.
• Carpooling. Not really something you would think of, but carpooling (especially since there might be people in your office who doesn’t know how to use a bike) is the best way to save money and is better for the environment. Lesser carbon print, the better it is – slowly it will be a better place.
• Windows. Nice cool weather outside with the right amount of sun? Why not turn off the air conditioner and let some fresh air in. It will save you a lot in your electricity bill and your employees will appreciate it. Besides, isn’t it relaxing to listen to birds chirping while working?
• Lesser hard copies. Lesser hard copies mean lesser clutter – meaning a more organised office. Relying on digital copies will save you more from papers and it’s even easier to distribute throughout the entire office. It’s the best way to save the environment while saving money.