Chef Laura: Rock your office clean

Before chefs starts prepping their mise en place, we ensure our work station is clean.  Using the token red bucket of sanitized water, we wipe down all surfaces and get ready to rock!  It’s an ever-present ritual we embraced early in our careers.

A few times a year, a pro kitchen will do a “deep cleaning”: get out the caustic chemicals, take apart the heavy metal racks, dump the questionable pan of…what’s that smell?…Meatloaf?, scrape out all the nooks and crannies, and put it back together with…ta-da!…no extra parts. 

On those days, we don’t wear our pristine chef whites or toques.  Instead, my locks are secured in a hair band while a concert t-shirt from my youth and my Ratt-iest checked pants, are the uniform of choice.

Grungy attire aside, a thorough scrub-down is a “best practice”.  If we don’t clean, this back-of-the-house Mötley Crüe could pass on _______ (insert your favorite foodborne Poison here).  Our kitchen is essentially our “office”, but I also extend this practice to my non-perishables like: paper files, hard drives and office supplies.

Today’s the start of my company’s fiscal year.  In my world, the Quiet Riot of 2014 has already begun. FY’13 is literally “in the books” which Warrants my files to reflect that. 

It’s the perfect time to don my Guns N’ Roses t-shirt, activate my “Out of Office” notification for the day, and enter my home office with recycle bin in hand…Welcome to the Jungle.

The Cure to help wrap my head-banging head around the start of a new fiscal year, is to “Merge N’ Purge” (killer band name, BTW) the prior one.  Just follow these four steps and U2 can have a clutter-free office to welcome the new fiscal year. 

1. This may sound Extreme, but forget the traditional “three pile system” to rationalize your papers: 

First – there’s no “Maybe” pile.  If you “kinda think you might need it one day”, guess what?  You won’t.  KISS it goodbye.  Purge.

Second – there’s no “Yes” pile.  If you’re keeping that receipt, business card, or famous Autograph, then show it some respect and file it accordingly.  Merge.

Third – the “No” pile isn’t a pile at all.  It’s the aforementioned recycle bin.  This will eliminate the temptation to touch this Garbage one last time.  Purge!

1. Not nearly as cathartic, it’s time to Slaughter the electronic files.  Distractedly browsing through a year’s worth of photos could be the ultimate time-suck.  So set The Alarm if you have to; in two hours, time’s up!  Organize documents in “folders”, tidy up your “desktop”, and then back it all up. 
2. Make like a chef and actually clean your office.  You shouldn’t need the industrial Grease Beast or Shelia Shine, but a little Pledge or Windex will get the job done.
3. A Cheap Trick I practice is to buy a new tchotchke for my office.  It’s a peace offering to your physical space to motivate you that this fiscal year will be like Sabbath…black.  A pretty vase, a headless bat, or an Ozzy Osbourne poster works well.

Like a Queen, or perhaps a Prince, lean back in your throne, neatly prop your feet up on the desk and marvel your office Oasis.  Ahhh….Nirvana!  Merging N’ Purging is the perfect way to reflect on your Journey of last fiscal year and set yourself up for success for the next one.  Rock on.