3 Keys...Tuesday?

Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Hi everyone! Between midterm grades and life in general, last week just got away from me. Since I had a post planned already, I didn't want to recycle...in retrospect, I should have done just that!

So, since I have a couple of days off this week, I thought I'd get caught up and share the post I planned for last Thursday. It synchs rather nicely with my post from last Wednesday, even if I did take "Starting Slowly" to a bit of an extreme!

As an adjunct, I share an office, so I can't exactly take over with all of the stuff that I think is essential. In addition, I do much of my planning at home, so I need all of that stuff at my fingertips there. Here are three tools I use to make sure I have what I need where and when I need it, at least most of the time.

A rolling bin. I ordered three of these from The Container Store years ago, and all have been pressed into various forms of service over the years in multiple small spaces. The bin at right began in my office at school before I retired, and was one of my first style-specific (I need to see it/drop and run) purchases. Now it lives under my desk in my tiny home office where it holds course materials. My daughter has a white one just like it under her desk in her dorm room.

Photo: ThirtyOne Gifts

A pre-packed bag. Okay, so this isn't entirely true. I'm still in search of the perfect bag, but I make sure the stuff I need every day I'm on campus is safely stashed in a soft organizer I can swap from bag to bag each day. Not only does it keep me prepared, it saves me a lot of time each morning getting ready because I don't have to worry about whether or not I have everything I need.


Tools that have proven useful in the past. If you've read it here once, you're read it a thousand times (okay, maybe not quite a thousand): organizing is a process. When, within that process, we discover things that work, they form the foundation of our entire system. I have a system of folders (color-coded by class) that I use every semester in exactly the same way. I also swear by my steno book and planner to keep tasks and ideas organized and all in one place.

Every semester, I tweak my systems, but the amount of tweaking I need from one semester to the next decreases dramatically every time I upgrade my system with a new tool or routine that works. Finding these style-specific tools and routines helps to create the systems that not only keep us organized, but also are easy to maintain.

See you tomorrow.