3 Keys Thursday: 3 of My Favorite School Tools -- Part 2

Photo: Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile

Over the past week, I've been writing about the tools I use to organize the materials I take back and forth to campus. As an adjunct professor, I'm an itinerant. I'm lucky enough to have a shared workspace designated as mine during certain time periods, but carrying my supplies around is part of the nature of the job. Finding a way to do so that works with my styles is, like any other organizational endeavor, a process, one that includes both sticking with what works (consistency) and adapting to change (flexibility). 

While the three tools I shared yesterday (flat surfaces, steno book, and planners) reflect both consistency and flexibility, today's tools -- three of my current favorites -- are all adaptations. 

• I love my clipboard. Both low profile and adaptable, it serves a variety of purposes, from holding my seating chart for the first few weeks while I learn names to holding my running to-do list and schedule for the week. Because it's more adaptable than the steno pad I used to use for my to-do lists, I have more reason to look at it and so it keeps my to-do list front and center, so to speak. Moving items from the to-do list to the weekly schedule sheet (also on the clipboard) employs an important principle of time management -- assigning times to tasks -- which leads to my getting through my to-do list more efficiently. Most weeks.

Pixabay

• Last summer, I switched from a tote bag to a backpack. It's a little counterintuitive for my I need to see it personal style, and I'm probably a little long in the tooth to carry the same tool my students use, but I got tired of the neck aches and backaches that my tote bags (which I usually carried over one shoulder) were giving me. In order to make it work effectively, I've assigned locations to everything that goes inside. Using them consistently helps to compensate for the fact that it's not a clear cut choice for my personal style. The padded straps, padding for my laptop and equal distribution of weight are important trade-offs.

• Color-coding is my friend and, tool-wise, the most obvious example of this in my school supply arsenal is the bound set of pocket folders I found at Staples right before the semester started. It holds reference materials for each of my classes, along with some basic reference materials applicable to all of my classes. I assign each class a color and materials either go into a folder of that color or are tabbed with that color. I often used a pen in the assigned color for grading and use paper clips in the assigned color to hold stacks of homework together, but going that overboard is not a requirement.

How about you? How have your styles led you to adapt your systems?