Autopilot. We’re all guilty of it. When programmed to do the right thing, autopilot can actually be extremely beneficial. But far too often, we fail to give informed thought to our actions and the easier (and sometimes even harmful) action turns from a one-time-thing to an all-the-time habit. 

How does this work? Once an action has been performed a few times, our brain relegates the task to “lower” regions of the brain so that our hippocampus — the front part of the brain and the last to be fully developed — can expend its energy on more pressing matters. 

I found myself on autopilot just the other day as I prepared dinner for my family while simultaneously mulling over a complicated scheduling matter. As my primary attention went to opening my mental calendar, other tasks were being performed on autopilot. Chop the onions, set out a frying pan, oil the frying pan, saute the onions, get out the chicken, dice the chicken, add chicken to frying pan, throw away chicken packaging, open cabinet, grab disinfectant, spray disinfectant on countertop, wipe countertop…

Fortunately, my hippocampus did its job and turned off autopilot before I accidentally risked a food poisoning situation right in my own home!

If you didn’t catch my mistake, then we can both gain a valuable reminder from Sonlight Cleaning Services about the critical importance of disinfecting properly.

When Sonlight Cleaning Services is on the job, their autopilot is always calibrated correctly when it comes to disinfecting. You see, disinfecting is a term that means to kill a significant amount of germs on a surface. Sanitizing is a term that is often used interchangeably but they are actually different. Sanitizing means to lower the number of germs on a surface. When chemical disinfectants are not used according to their packaging directions, they only sanitize rather than disinfect a surface. Additionally, a surface must first be cleaned before a disinfectant is applied, otherwise every dust or dirt molecule acts like a tiny umbrella that shields the disinfectant from actually reaching a surface.

In my own kitchen, my autopilot was steering me wrong, telling me to skip the cleaning step altogether and furthermore to wipe the countertop before the chemical disinfectant had the proper dwell time necessary to do its job. I missed these two critical steps.

Sonlight Cleaning Services is well-versed on disinfecting protocol. Especially with covid and all of its variants on the loose, it is essential that surfaces be disinfected, not just sanitized, in your place of business. When you contract your commercial janitorial cleaning needs with Sonlight, you can bet that our autopilot won’t let you down. 

By Laura Pulliam