I really thought I had only skipped one week, but here I am THREE weeks later, saying Oops! I will blame it on my return to busyness (coincidentally the title of my next blog entry). It seems as of late, I’ve constantly been on some quest to declutter my life. I find that now that I have started teaching again, there is a need for a higher level of organization. In the three weeks since classes have started, I have seen my desk look like a mini tornado blew through and scattered all my papers in a jumble all over my desk; I can only see the outskirts of the wood pattern that I have. And my new supervisor, who is the person formerly known as my partner-in-crime co-worker, politely commented on its disarray. Although I had placed it on my agenda to take care of the issue at some point in the near future, my supervisor’s suggestions encouraged me to be proactive and not just continue to wait until items piled up and festered and I was no longer able to find anything. So I started from scratch and started in the corners and recesses of my office.
• Step 1: the cabinet above my desk. The cabinet has doors, so messes are easily hidden and ignored. I threw two boxes of cereal that had been in there since last year, and then got rid of a lot of unnecessary papers that I had hauled back into this building from our temporary location. I placed all my giveaways in a stacked order to easily access them for class.
• Step 2: the bookshelf behind my desk. First, all the leftover folders from previous students had to go. I kept a few that were really nice for myself, but the majority of them are going to be placed on a giveaway cart. Second, I arranged all my colored paper into one stack. Third, my class papers that I use on a regular basis were placed into on big pile and I will buy some accordion folders to truly file them. Fourth, I had to box many of the novels that had started to stockpile on the shelf. Fifth, I am emptying out some binders that I find I no longer need.
• My desk: this is of course the last area I am tackling as it is where there I don’t know where to put them items have ended up. So far, I still have old leave slips to sort through and the papers from my various classes to sort. I have an array of folders in which to put these items, so I feel pretty confident that it can be done at least by the end of this week.
