Organized or Not?
Posted by Kim Murphy on 08 Sep 2009 | Posted in: Classroom Management, Organization and Supplies, Teachers and Teaching
As I look about my office, I notice a lot of piles. There are piles of folders, piles of ideas, and piles of miscellaneous things that need to be sorted into other piles. I’m sure some of my coworkers are horrified at my haphazard organizational system. It isn’t that I don’t want to have everything in its place; I really do! However, my brain doesn’t seem to function that way.
The one time I always had everything organized and as neat as a pin was at the beginning of the school year. Of course, my organized room would slowly disintegrate into my more typical piling method. Do you consider yourself well organized? Are you consistently neat and tidy or do you lean a bit more toward my method of organization? Do you feel that your home and classroom are both organized or does one suffer? Drop me a line and let me know!
Your slightly disorganized blog host,
Kim
Congratulations to Rhonda Brown of Messiah Lutheran Preschool in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is the winner of a copy of one of the books from our Mix & Match Games series.
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My classroom is very organized. I am lucky enough to have a co-teacher and an assistant(I work in a private religious language school teaching kindergarten) who are very helpful in organizing. I label everything and everywhere, so that the students are able to put things away too. But, my little storage room-9feet by 6 feet, is a disaster. No one is allowed in there and it is where I leave my organization outside. It lets me pile things up and get to it later. I think that we need both sides to be creative and able to work efficiently.
I thank you all for making my day!! I am glad to be in the “teacherhood” of pilers. I know where everything is—or at least which pile it is in!!
How can we expect students to be organized if we’re not? I subbed onced in a filthy and messy room. Old things piled everywhere. At the end of the year, the students had to really clean and get rid of old materials. One student said, “Why should we clean, Mrs. Smith does not!”
Wow! I thought that I was the only one. I too, am a “piler”. I did do a great deal of purging in my classroom last year. It was so much easier to begin this new school year when I didn’t have to organize so much stuff. I haven’t missed a single item that I tossed or gave away!
I realize it is best to be organized. I realize that if I want to use my time for teaching Then I have to take the time to Organize everything. When I organize the classroom the children are able to help get the room clean and organized by knowing that there is a place for everything. But I still think I need more time in the day to achieve perfection!!
I also have piles everywhere. I have a friend who calls it Horizontal Surface Disorder…if there’s a horizontal surface in my classroom I have piles on it!
After reading all of the comments I feel a lot better. I too have piles and folders. Good intentions of organizing go by the wayside once the “busyness” of school begins. The comment about having the space to put things away is true. They should make classrooms with one wall of only drawers and cupboards.
I am more organized then ever. I use a binder system for all my papers. I sort them by every day needed papers, Portfolio papers and themes. I have binders for everything. This has helped and keeps the papers in order and less mess on my desk and in my teacher room at home.
Organization! What’s that? I too find my desk or the tables and shelves around my desk become my filing tables of stacks of things waiting to be used at one time or another. I am looking for an easy method to keep things in order and filed as it should be. The labeled tubs may be an answer but who has time to do that and teach. We are required to teach so msny frameworks and make sure the students are ready for all the different assessments etc. that it sometimes seems overwhelming just to get that part done. Looking for good ideas in all the Mailbox issues.
I start out the year with the very best of intentions when it comes to staying organized. Each year I try a new system, but by the end of September I realize that piles have started to form on my desk and shelving next to my desk. All I want is to find the system that allows me to instantly put my finger on that needed piece of paper, education article, or fun activity. Glad to read that I’m not alone in my pursuit of organization.
I have taught preschool for 20 years I have always been organized at work. but not at home.
my childs kindergarten class was a cluttered mess
and so so is my seconds child. you may not see the mess but parents do.
I’ve always struggled with clutter - it’s organized, but others perceive it as messy.
When I began my career, a fellow teacher dedicated a table as her “file” system. If you would ask her for some specific thing, she’d travel two piles over and down 5 inches and find just what you needed.
I find my space is similar: I’m so visual that I need all important items out and showing! If I can’t put it out in plain sight or in a pile, I forget it. I keep the student spaces much less cluttered and try to tidy up for them. Home is messy! I’m too exhausted to get it spic and span after work!
I agree with Wanda….i am more organized at home….i teach Kindergarten in a very small room, so my desk is where the piles begin…..I am organized with folders and files inside my cabinets, but that is hidden…..a busy desk shows i’m getting things done….besides….i am sure i’m speaking for all the Kindergarten teachers when i say I don’t sit at my desk until all my little ones walk down the hall at the end of the day….we are always on the go with 5 year olds….so my desk becomes it’s own filing system.
Oh my gosh! My apartment suffers! I have a very organized classroom, top to bottom. Containers galore, labels on everything, and no clutter. But at the end of the day, when I come home, the last thing I want to do is clean again, organize again, or even put things away. I have learned that the more years of teaching you have under your belt, the more “stuff” you seem to aquire. Luckily, this is only my second year! I have had to move my classroom already so I have learned that that helps with the “cleaning-out” process. As much as moving your classroom stinks, it helps me to remain organized.
I teach in two different classrooms and for my sanity, I need to have relativly clean and organized classrooms. I use two sets of daily buckets to place my books, handouts, and art materials in, and only pull out the items that I need for the current day. When the classroom is organized and well prepared, I feel that I am better at following the students lead and utilizing those very important teachable moments. My home on the other hand… It’s rather unorganized and often gets pushed to the back burner as I work on things for school. But that is almost a privilage seeing as how I live alone.
I envy the organized people! Instead of a filing system, I tend to have a piling system for “To Do” items and on-going projects, and white plastic crates for units. We have no storage area at school, so my crates and materials are in my basement and I trade out what I need weekly (Maybe THAT’S why I drive a van!). Almost always I can find what I want. I do take time to make sure my room is straightened and ready for class before I leave each day. I am also a PreK person, but with increasing paper work, documentation requirements, and assessments, I find that I never get to do all the wonderful “stuff” with the kids that I want to do. I could probably purge a lot of my materials, but then that fatal thought comes to mind: “But I use that for _____!” (fill in the blank with a theme) I’m on a quest for organization, but I think it’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint!
I teach first grade and this year I have been moved into a class that is double the size of my last one. It’s so much easier to get things organized when you have the room to spread it out. I still struggle with things, but overall it’s much nicer.
I teach 1st grade at a Title One school. My Title One Assitant organized my filing cabinet a few years ago, by A-Z activities, themes, holidays, seasons, etc. in chronological order. I have easy access to what I need. I also have a second 2 drawer filing cabinet. One with math curriculum, and the other drawer is a Langauage Arts file (again listed A-Z) with skills such as adverbs, blends, diphthings, nouns, pronouns, sentence structure, verbs, short and long vowel sounds, writing sentences, etc. Large tubs are also helpful for storing science materials for experiments and hands on demonstrations, and seasonal activities and decorations. Althougth I try to be organized, it is always a challenge to stay organized. There are some teachers that are so pefectly organized, I often feel inadequate compared to them, but you have to just realize that there will always be those who have better or lesser than that of yourself. As long as your students are learning, and you’re teaching all you’re supposed to, then you know you’re in good shape.
I am organized at home, but school is another world. I teach kindergarten, and I find that by the time I organize the little ones my space is a disaster.
After 30 years of teaching I have come to the conclusion that organization is in the eyes of the beholder. If I know where everything is and can meet the needs of my children, then my piles don’t really matter.
I read a quote once that said “If a cluttered desk shows a cluttered mine, what does an empty desk show?”. If you look in my room you will at first see a very neat and organized space. As your eyes travel towards my desk you will start to see the piles grow then if you look back at the room you’ll see them! Although I do have piles I can find anything you want me to find. My teaching partners room is the exact opposite. You walk in and you’re not positive that the room is in use. Everything is put away and has it’s own place. You open her cupboards and they’re strangely empty. However, if you ask her to find something that she was given that day she can’t begin to know where it is!
I’m guilty of being very on-top of it and organized at the beginning of the year and right after a workday of filing for hours, but usually there are piles (hidden of course!) of books and ideas. I even pile them at home! Who has the time for it? I need help with organizing so I’m reading all of these comments!
I home school all 6 of our children and just when we think we are organized we turn to find something else that isn’t. We will keep on trying. Thanks
I agree with what Ginny wrote about having piles on her desk but she can still find everything. I too can never find anything once I “organize” my desk. I like to think of my piles as “organized clutter”. I do however make sure I place my desk so visitors to my room really don’t see it. (back of the room, behind a bookshelf…). The rest of my room however is organized, especially my reading table.
I do daycare so I am ALWAYS trying to find the best way to stay organized with my preschool stuff. I hate to buy those monthly curriculums for big bucks. But now that I found mailbox I am already doing better. I love all of the ideas on here and plan on working on getting my office organized…thank you all for your great ideas.
This yr I am sharing a room with another teacher. It’s tough keeping things organized when we are sharing everything!
I LOVE the ideas of colored folders. I am definitely going to invest in some of those!
Any suggestions for organizational items for small areas? Our space for our own items are limited.
Thanks!
I was a very organized person until I had to move last year, WHILE I had students in my room for instruction, so another teacher could move into my room! I teach sp. ed. K-5 so I have SO much and now it is truly a mess! BUT I will get it back in order by daily cleaning a section. Right now I have a hard time finding & keeping what I need! This motivates me to keep cleaning!
Last year was my first year teaching 5K. I inherited my room from a 21 year 5K veteran teacher (who I student taught under). When she moved rooms, she left me everything (after she threw out 52 bags of accumulated things from her “use what you can reach” office)!
I am a very organized, “everything has a place” person. There was so much in the office still that I didn’t even know what was in there! Near the end of the year, a very reliable and helpful parent volunteer spent 3 whole school days in my office. She organized all the shelves, filing cabinets (3), and closets. It now looks clean and organized!
I have a filing cabinet organized by A-Z activities, Themes for the year, Holidays, and all curriculum areas. This helps me find things quickly. It’s a lot of work, but it helps eliminate stress and extra work.
I found keeping things in tubs and being purposeful on getting things back where they belong has helped me not feel so disorganized. It does take a lot of work. Once I slip-up it seems to make me feel more behind than I really am!
I never get totally organized. I look around at other teacher’s classroom with envy. I hope that it will come together for me one day.
I am most like the girls who have different piles and am able to find it if it is in that pile. When I straighten up, I can’t find a thing. I start out the year and then start my piles. I have learned in 27 years of teaching that you could spend 24 hours at the school and never get all of your work done. You must have time with your family. Have a wonderful year everyone!
I wish I was more organized! Every year I feel like I get better in one aspect but then fall back in another. When I first got into teaching, the constant disorganization drove me nuts!
I’ve come to decide that part of being “organized” is being ok when things are un-organized!
I am all about the organized chaos!! But it’s what works for me. I have a little sign at home in my kitchen that reads “I finally got it all together and forgot where I put it.” Totally me to a “T”.
After 20 years of teaching I am a bit more organized. The first few years things were piled every where. Now i know where things go. Can I find things right away not always but 80 per cent of the time yes.
I have a system like Marie’s. But both the file cabinet and the theme boxes are set up monthly, Sept to May. And they are color coded. I was thinking of adding books to the boxes as Marie does, but there are so many I read at different times of the year. I just added more shelf space and seperated the books by month, season and themes. We’ll see how this works. I also use clear plastic wall file holders similar to Shannon, but labeled them ‘this week’ and ‘next week’. My plan is the keep these updated and continue filing the ‘last week’ away in the monthly color coded file, and not piling up on top of the file cabinet. I have been forcing myself to toss the extra paper clutter in the recylcing bin!
i have piles everywhere. i spent this last summer, putting everything into a rented storage shed with the idea i’d organize it. Well I have 3 feet of files that i worked on for a few day before reportign for duty. Otherwise, the shed is a huge piled mess, even extended my rental contract as I refuse to bring this chaos back into my house or classroom until its orgainzed. Even with many things left behind in the shed, fiels haven’t made it to work yet, I still have piles all around my bookcase and desk, but not nearly the size they use to be. i agree with an earlier post..PreK keeps everything because we may need it for a future project.
I’ve had some training in personalities and quirks that different people have. One method of categorizing people is how they organize…there are two basic groups–Pilers and Filers! Kim, sounds like you’re a piler. I am a filer, and I am slightly OCD about my unit folders. I keep my units by subject in the order that I teach them. I also have my different subjects color-coordinated. By the end of one day, my desk gets pretty messy, so I usually put it all in a pile and put those things away before I leave. That way my desk (and classroom in general!) are ready for the next day, no hassle.
I am a pile person. I try to get things filed and put in their proper place but life is to short and my time with my students, family, and friends is more important. Still I try hard to tackle one area at a time and then try to keep it tidy. I teach my students to organize thier things and sometimes they remind me why it is helpful to be organized. I hope that in my lessons I also show the human side and that even the teacher is not perfect.
I love to be organized, but it’s a constant battle with the people around me. I have specific places for everything, or most everything. I’m the go-to person when you need to borrow something, because I always know where my things are and so do other people because I keep it simple.
This past year I have become more digital with my organizing. I scan documents into my computer and file them there instead of in a traditional filing cabinet. I have cut down on two-4 drawer filing cabinets into one filing drawer in my desk by doing this. I find it easier to find bills, receipts, school assignments, and all the other paper things that get stacked if I have it on my computer.
If it were easy to scan books into my computer, I’d do that too. As it is, I try to buy digital books and print as I need the materials.
I have a file cabinet for various subjects from A-Z and plastic bins for the months of the year as the same units are usually in place through the course of the year. The one thing I have had trouble with in the past is how to keep the children’s books at hand and readily available. I love to teach a theme around a book. I used to put them away in my library by subject matter but now I am using the same method that I use with the plastic bins and putting the books in my bookshelf by month-i.e.September is Handwashing Rules of the school, the fruit of the spirit(Kindness) etc. This way next year I will not have to go for a search through the library. Staying organized has always been a challenge for me and putting things away right after I have used them seems to be the only cure I know!
I am as guilty as the rest of you. I start off with great intentions and end up with piles. This year, I am trying to focus on one bad habit at a time. I tend to let my filing pile up and then at the end of the year it takes me a whole day to file. I am resolved, before I can go home on Friday, to file everything in my file box.
I try everyday before I leave to make sure that the papers that are on my desk are filed away where they belong. I like to start my day clean. I do have a table that sometimes is cluttered but it is because I work there all the time. Another thing I have found helpful is hot glueing a file folder to the wall with each of these categories: to be filed, to be copied, and important notices. This helps me to clean off my desk! I take one afternoon a week to clean the folders. It makes life so simple!
I also Have a file folder for each day of the week. When I make my copies I put them in the day that I use them.
I hope that these ideas help someone! Trust me my room is not as organized as I would like, but….
That sounds just like me. But, I am organized. I know what is in that pile and where at in the pile. If you move it or actually file it away I don’t know where it is!
Organized at school…absolutely! Organized at home…not so much! My desk at home is always a mess no matter how hard I try to organize. At school, everything is in binders or folders and clearly labeled. I figure that as long as I am organized in one place in my life, the other part doesn’t matter as much!
As I am reading this I look over at my desk cluttered and covered with a note stuck in the middle to clean off my desk this week!!! I have organized chaos!!
I’ll let things stack up and stack up. There will be piles all over the house. But once a month I’ll get to it and get it all back where it belongs. However, at school I’m much better organized. I start the year nice and tidy with everything I’ll need ready to go. But I’ll let those things pile up after I finish with them. Whether they are stacks of trade books or files of ideas. Again, once a month I’ll clean it all up and start fresh.
If you can find the pile you put the stuff in you are ahead of me most of the time! I like to think that the children around me are more important than the filing system. However sometimes I loose my “pile” the children have to wait and then it becomes bigger than me. I have labored with this problem for 34 years. There is only x amount of time and xyz things to do!
Okay, I hear that a lot of you are organized (unlike myself) but I didn’t hear any specific ways that you go about being organized. Suggestions? Ideas? Help?
I agree with Mary Ellen - time, space, and especially life gets in the way. I have three kids, who always need something so they interupt alot and I forget what I was doing!! I try really hard, but if the people you work with and live with don’t work as hard or follow through - nothing stays organized. If someone solves that problem let me know!!
I try to stay organized but I always end of with piles.
Same here! I always think, if I only had enough containers and label maker tape, my life would be on track! But, I am always one container short, then i need 10 more, then, well, you get the picture. My mom always used to make fun of my “piles” as a kid, too. I tend to stack things in piles, but, I can find it. There is no question there!
I am all for being organized- all aspects of life run smoother when things are in order. Now- that’s not to say that that chaos never occurs. I do find that when I am better organized, I am better able to enjoy those crazy times!
I would like to say that I’m organized at both home and school. I do have systems in place at both places but fine that when I am in the midst of too many happenings - things go crazy. I also have that one folder that never seems to get empty because I hide everything in it.
I strive for organization every day. Being organized makes me more efficient and like I have really accomplished something that day besides looking for everything. At home, I am organized, but I am married to a clutterbug that I have to go behind once a week and purge his little piles. If I spend 5-10 minutes each day just to file and trash, then I don’t have a lot looking at me at one time.
Diana has a good point– so many teachers keep everything so that we may recycle it. I’ve noticed my ambition for recycling has caused the largest amount of piles, both in my classroom and home.
I always have the highest hopes for organization, but sharing my classroom with other staff, and working with very busy children means spending a whole weekend every few months reorganizing everything
I feel the same way. If my school stuff is neat and organized then my home stuff is somewhat chaotic. There doesn’t ever seem to be a happy medium where both things look well maintained. Hopefully that will change someday.
I believe in the power of organization! Although it takes a little time, in the long run it saves you time in the classroom! If you know where everything is (and can actually find it) then you don’t waste instructional time looking for stuff!
All of those comments sound like me. I work hard at being organized but…. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone.
I try to stay organized, but I am sure it looks like a whirlwind half of the time. I think my problem isn’t keeping things organized, it’s that when I start organizing I pull out way too much stuff at one time…which becomes overwhelming. I do have this dream of being the organized queen that I wish to be…one day I’ll get there. But, for now, I am still wading through my haphazard pile.
I organize all my stuff on the day after the last day of the school year, while everything is still fresh in my mind. Having taken notes and kept them in the folder with the lesson plan, I can simply look at the note and see what I need to change. Organizing might take me a couple of days, but no more than that. Then I can forget about it all summer, and a few days before school starts again, a quick look to refamiliarize myself with the upcoming year is all I need. I also use lots of containers throughout the year to keep things together.
I think everyone has good intentions of staying organized but time, space and life gets in the way. I feel I am just like Diana who feels I have to save everything. I have to keep a paper copy and a copy on my computer. I guess I am just not really that high tech. yet.
Hey, I’m the same way! I have stacks of folders, ideas and I never seem to have enough room. Or maybe I’m not organized enough either. One problem is that I never throw anything away! Then again Iam a Head Start Pre-K teacher, so I use a lot of recycled material.
Well, I feel my method is very much like yours…
I start out very organized and then go to my piles. I also find as many teachers in my building have said if one place is organized then the other place suffers. We can’t ever seem to have both places clean and tidy. If someone knows how let me in on it!
I am like you…I start my year off with all these great ideas to keep my room and desk neat and organized but as the days go by and I get busier I find myself a mess.