Office and Desk Cleaning Checklist

Who this is for

An office cleaned by the people who work in it. One short round for your own desk, one for the shared areas nobody owns, and a longer list for the jobs that only get done when somebody decides to do them.

Small offices without a cleaner, people working from home at a desk that has become a filing system, and whoever ends up organising the shared kitchen.

What this helps you track

• The short round that keeps a desk usable
• The shared areas — kitchen point, meeting table, printer, bins
• The deeper jobs, listed so they are visible rather than vaguely intended
• Which round was done and by whom
• Anything that needs reporting rather than cleaning

How to use it

1. Write the desk, room or floor this sheet covers, who is doing it and the date.
2. Do the desk round first: clear the surface, deal with what is on it, then clean what is underneath the mess rather than around it.
3. Work through the shared areas next. Putting a name and a date on this list is what stops the kitchen being everybody's problem and nobody's job.
4. Take the deeper jobs one or two at a time rather than saving them all for one afternoon that never comes.
5. Cross out anything that does not apply to your office and write your own in the margin; the browser version takes new items on any list.
6. Anything broken, unsafe or beyond a cloth is reported to the person named at the top, not cleaned round.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Does this replace a commercial cleaning specification?

No. A contracted clean is specified by whoever holds the contract, and a workplace may have rules of its own about what staff should and should not clean. This is a list for an office that cleans itself.

What about screens and keyboards?

They are on the list, but how to clean them is a question for the manufacturer's instructions. Equipment, coatings and screens differ, so the sheet says to clean them and stops there.

How often should each round be done?

The sheet does not say and carries no interval. Fill in the date each time a round is done and a pattern will appear that fits your office rather than somebody else's.

Can it be used for a home office?

Yes — that is what the desk round is for. Skip the shared areas or rename them for the room the desk lives in.