TME Tuesday: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Caution! This is not my typical Tuesday post! I hope it will give you some ideas for therapeutic music experiences (TMEs), but I'm not giving you an idea to use with your clients today. I'm thinking about things a bit differently right now.

Someone posted something about having difficulty with organizing materials and stuff in between sessions as a busy itinerant music therapist. This started me thinking about how I organize myself in this same situation. (On a side note, I've done several webinars about this topic for both MT-BCs and interns). My mantra, in this type of situation is to always strive to "Work Smarter, NOT Harder!"

To that end, I have managed to come up with a system that really works for me. It contains session planning, TME development, organization, and my four "C"s - Corral, Categorize, Conserve, and Consider.

This system may not work for you, but I hope that it may spark some ideas on how to give yourself the gift of working smarter when it comes to music therapy session planning and implementation.




First things first, think about your clients. All session planning should start with the clients, always and forever! What do you want to do with them during their time with you? Start brainstorming what clients need to do in order to move them towards their therapeutic goals.

Second, as you are writing down therapeutic music experience ideas, spend some time thinking about what you are asking your clients to do during the TME itself. Those are your goal areas. Once you start thinking about goals in each and every TME, you will find session planning a bit easier because you already know everything that TMEs can address.

Third, match client goals with therapeutic music experience goals to develop your session plan and material list.

Fourth, arrange your materials (I use my four "C"s to help me with this!).

The First "C"
Corral - keep all your music therapy materials in one place in your area - living, car, office, what have you. Always put things back in that place when you are finished. It really helps you to get materials quickly when the shaker eggs are always in the same spot. Keep an inventory of your materials, instruments, and supplementals and use a check-out system to help you remember where you took the instruments so you can find them if they go lost.

The Second "C"
Categorize - I use a different color for every type of session that I have going. The groups for kids who have significant sensory areas of focus have blue things - the blue bag, the blue box, and the blue folders. The groups for kids who have more emotional/behavioral areas of focus have materials in the red bag, box, and folder. As I am planning, I place the materials that I need in the colored boxes/bags/folders for each group. I also write down what I put where on my check-out list so I will always know where the shaker eggs have traveled.

I also have an "always" bag. This is the place where I keep things that I need all the time or need to have at any time. This includes the iPod, documentation, invoices, a spare pad of paper, pens and pencils, marketing materials, and any instruments, materials, or supplementals that will be used in all of my sessions. I still use a check out list for anything that isn't usually in the bag, but the essentials are always present.

The Third "C"
Conserve - It is important to protect your body as you are schlepping instruments around to all of your sessions. To that end, it is important to use good body mechanics when you have to move things around. Think carefully when you are organizing. Do you really need 17 djembes? Would one djembe and 16 paddle drums be fine? Could clients take turn playing the one djembe? Would soundshapes be just as good for the clients? The answers to these questions will help you figure out what and where you can conserve.

Limit your materials to those things that you know you will use - not what you might use during a session - and this leads us into the fourth "C."

The Fourth "C"
Consider - When you have your materials set and organize, start to brainstorm all of the different things that you can do with those materials - beyond your session plan. Take it from someone who has been there... often... sometimes daily... when you finish everything that you have on your plan, but still have fifteen minutes left, you want to have thought about what else you can do with the things you have on hand. Write these ideas down and make a small prompt for you so you don't have to wrack your brain during the session for some idea. (I like super sticky post-it notes for these small prompts.) Keep these ideas so you don't have to reinvent the process each and every time you include the cabasa/afuche in your bag.

Here's what works for me. What works for you? How do you work smarter and not harder? Leave a message in the comments!