Spring, it is such a fresh time of the year, the days are longer, the perennials are starting to peek their heads up, the trees are budding, and you have a bounce in your step. You are ready to take on whatever the world will throw at you.
What keeps me bouncing along is the surprised feeling I get when I see the perennials that come up in our yard early in the spring. I have short-term memory loss when it comes to what has been planted in previous years. It makes me smile when I see the new spring growth that I had forgotten all about.
Another thing I love about Spring is the feeling I have after I have changed over my closets and my clothes are organized and neatly folded on the shelves. I can see my clothes, they are not a jumbled mess. It saves so much time when choosing what to wear to the office or wherever I am going that day. Also, like my short-term plant memory loss, I am surprised at my spring clothes. I forget from season to season what I have. I think it is on purpose! It’s like a brand-new wardrobe, that hopefully, still fits. Sometimes they shrink in the closet over the winter. But before I put the clothes in the closet, I sort them into three piles, a need-altering pile, and giveaway pile ( the shrinkage pile), a the just perfect pile. Boy, I feel ready to take on the world when I am organized and in the closet. Time to celebrate.
It is no different at work, this is the ideal time of the year to take advantage of that “spring in your step, the ability to do anything” and extend it to your business. Do some cleaning and organizing to get everyone feeling the same.
Distractions and clutter make it hard for most people to concentrate. Take to time to talk to your employees about what needs to be cleaned, repaired, changed, replaced or updated. With your team’s input, make a list set and date prioritize the order which you will tackle the projects.
Here are some suggestions:
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Clean and organize your individual workspace and common areas.
I am not talking about the regular cleaning that gets done daily or weekly, I mean dig deep,
- clean the fridge,
- the junk room,
- your desk drawers
- the kitchen
- the windows
- the vehicles
- ditch the dying office plants
- Everything associated with your business
A clean and organized space reduces the time you and your employees spend searching for items. That alone will increase productivity. Walking into a clean organized work area is empowering. That bounce in your step will continue once that annoying scuff, or messy desk has been organized and the work on it prioritized.
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Social media/web page cleanup.
This is another area that may need some attention but always gets left out for later. This is a good time to:
- Review your links to ensure are they all working
- Update outdated or incorrect information.
- Review if the website needs reorganizing.
- Is information missing and needs to be added?
Prioritize what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Explore who can do it in the company or if an outside provider needs to be contacted to help out.
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Repair or replace items that need fixing.
We all have items in our work environment that need to be repaired or touched up. No one ever has the time to get to it, but it annoys everyone. This is the perfect time to take inventory on what needs some work or needs replacing. Perhaps someone on your team has the skill set to fix it before you replace it, This is time to find out. If not, prioritize the order of the repairs or replacements. It could be simple as fixing the voice message.
It is such a great feeling to have the little “to-do’s” finally taken care of. Makes you feel lighter and the look and smell of a clean organized work space will continue that spring bounce in your step.
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Company Lunch.
Make the Spring-cleaning day a company get-together. It doesn’t have to be Christmas to have a potluck lunch or bring in pizza.
- Let the team decide are they having potluck or ordering in. Remember the clean organized office environment will increase productivity. Lunch is s small cost for the overall reward.
- Maybe play some fun games, Charades, or Pictionary. Trust me you may get resistance when you mention it , but the end it is a way to get people laughing and bonding over something silly.
Culture is so important in business, particularly a family business. This is one way to engage everyone to work together for the good of the work environment, and your clients. Besides who doesn’t like to come to work with everything in its place and the smell of spring in the air. Maybe you can even open the windows or update the office plants.
Cheers to Spring Cleaning!
Tammy