What Do I Do? Suggestions NEEDED!!

Alt Text: a picture of a box-filled room - some boxes are open, others are closed. Lots of things sitting in boxes and on surfaces.
How it's going!
So, something that I know for a fact but that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable is that I have too much music therapy stuff.

(Is anyone shocked by this?? Anyone?)

I keep finding stashes of visual aids and PECS and things that I have made or accumulated over the years. Each time I find some more, I get a bit more frustrated with myself. This is a never-ending situation I find myself in at the moment. I found another box yesterday - full of baggies of visual aids that are not corralled anywhere, so they are not useful. There is nothing more frustrating to me than non-useful things taking up space - AND, that's ALL that I have around me! Non-useful things taking up space.

A long career as a music therapist means that I have lots of things to go through and either find uses for or give away to someone who can use them. I need to get in touch with the local music therapy university programs to arrange for some donations. I wonder if they would take communication systems and file folder activities. I wonder why I haven't thought about this before! There are two university programs within an hour of my home, so I could give things to both programs. Huh. I wonder if that would work. I think I will email Deanna today to see if they would be interested in some stuff...

That would give me an incentive to sort and give away. I need that type of incentive because I am a hoarder. Yep - that's what I am. I am a music therapy hoarder! 

A new quest for my 2022 list of quests! Be a bit less of a music therapy hoarder.

So, for this quest, I have some questions for you...

  • What types of storage do you use for visual aids? 
  • How do you organize communication cards (PECs or other types of pictures)? 
  • How do you maintain your space if you use lots of visuals? 
  • How do you decide when you are finished with a specific visual aid? 
  • What types of visual aids do you use the most with your clients? 
  • Have you gone exclusively digital when it comes to visuals? If so, why? If not, why not??
  • Are there other systems that you have used for visuals and materials and all that? 

My systems work well for me. I have the essential things down to a science, but I still have all the rest of the stuff that is not essential hanging around. I no longer need lyric sheets for Britney Spears songs - but someone working with adults in various day programs might be able to use those. There is still life in those visuals, but they have outlived their usefulness for me. Why keep them? My brain goes immediately into "I might have a use for them someday," but my rational mind knows that I can scan the visuals and keep them digitally on the off-chance that I will actually use them again someday.

Release. That would be a good word for this year, but it's not the one I have chosen. I'll reveal that word after Christmas and before the New Year. I might have to adopt another word - I am really liking release at the moment. Perhaps I can have two words... there are no rules, so I can do what I need to do! 

Time to move forward into the next part of my music therapy evolution. Release...and share! 

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