Order from Chaos

At Mid-American Building Services, we can do all your office cleaning, but its up to you to keep your desk space organized. If you'd like to talk to someone about keeping your office clean, give us a call at (414)475-2600 and we can work with you to provide a janitorial service that fits your needs.

Having a janitorial service like ours will help you keep your office clean of trash, but equally important is that you identify what is trash. Having too much clutter can increase stress, kill productivity as you rifle through stacks of loose papers, and overwhelm you on a daily basis. Don't make an emotional attachment to that 2006 Packers schedule. Instead, pitch it and pin the new one to your desk calendar!

Consider these 5 tips from Liz Davenport, of OrderFromChaos.com.

1- Write everything down; trust nothing to memory. Keep one calendar. If someone asks you to do something, write it down, right then.

2- Have a method to remind yourself when things need to be done. Your calendar and a pending file are just the ticket. Make a note on the calendar to remind you of the thing to do and keep the corresponding paperwork in the pending file.

3- If items have an assigned home, they will gravitate toward it. If they have no assigned home, they will wander into aimless piles on your desk. Decide how you might use an Item in the future, create a place for it, and put it there. Extra tip: Group things whenever possible.

4- Incoming information is the enemy. Don't ignore it or put it off. Have a station for dealing with all forms of incoming data mail, e-mail, faxes, phone messages. Have your calendar handy, your to-do list and a huge trash can. Write appropriate notes in your calendar and toss the supporting documentation, unless it will be needed.

5- Ask yourself, "If the house was on fire, would I grab this?" If not, why save it? Don't keep anything you can find somewhere else. Clear away as much as possible, then clear away more. Form the habit of throwing things out the emotional cost of being surrounded by useless paper is higher than you realize.

National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization

If your level of disorganization threatens to overwhelm you, check out this collection of Fact Sheets from the NSGCD.

Personally, I have a few boxes sitting around with no idea as to the contents, and it might just be a matter of time before I start hoarding stacks of magazines that fall over and trap me for a week.

As Winter approaches in Milwaukee (and at 52 degrees this morning, it's well on its way) we'll all be spending far more time inside our offices and homes. Unfortunately, this leads to more clutter. Staying organized, keeping a close eye on the things you decide to keep or throw away, and visits from a professional cleaning service like Mid American Building Services will keep your office running smoothly through the cold Wisconsin winter.

Cleaning Your PC Monitor

Hope you're all having a great Labor Day weekend! The weather here in Wisconsin is gorgeous, giving us a late blast of Summer. I wanted to follow up with my last post and link to a blog article from overseas offering some tips on cleaning off your PC monitor. Over time, dust and oil can cloud up your screen and make for some nasty glare under normal office lights. If your eyes are bothering you, remember to take a break for 15 minutes every hour or so. Find something to do that isn't staring at a computer screen!

Check the article out here

Happy Labor Day!

I hope everyone makes the most of the three day weekend, and is looking forward to the start of the fall bringing the Harvest Fair, Eagle River's Cranberry Fest and Packers football.

Here are some great Do-It-Yourself office projects from Lifehacker.com to make your office space more cozy and personalized once it gets cold outside, and you have to start spending every daylight hour inside. My favorite is definitely the monitor riser, #3 on their list. Having your monitor at eye-level helps considerably with preventing eye-strain and a sore neck later in the day.

Click here for the list

Help Organizing Your Office:

Here's a news report from Shopzilla and NBC about organizing your office space. The bottom line is this: throw things away! Don't be afraid to make a lot of tough choices for that immense stack of papers covering your desk.

7-Step Program Towards Keeping Your Office Supply Cabinet Organized

This article from LifeOrganizers.com covers some great ways to keep your office supply cabinet clean, organized, and efficient. A clean office is a more productive office, and these steps will go a long way toward avoiding a supply cabinet full of stacks and piles of who-knows-what.

Read about it here.

MidAmerican = Consistent Quality

MidAmerican Building Services has provided commercial, industrial and educational cleaning services in Wisconsin for over 40 yrs.

MidAmerican's 200 trained cleaning professionals provide cleaning services for over 100 clients, encompassing over 5 million sq. ft of office, industrial, and educational space.

The strength of MidAmerican, and what differentiates us from our competitors, is our labor force made up of trained full-time cleaning professionals. These individuals bring a work ethic to their jobs not normally seen in our industry.

We experience virtually no absenteeism or turnover with our crews, the two most significant detriments to consistent quality cleaning

- 89% of our employees have worked on the same account for at least the last 12 months.

- 92% were absent 2 days or less during the last 12 months. 71% did not miss a day.

For a list of our references from clients representing some of Wisconsin's premier property managers and owners, call Betty Stacks at (414) 475-2600