Systems in Music Therapy: Friday

Today is the day that I write about the systems that I have in my life that help me do the job of being a music therapist. I have written many posts about various things that I do as a music therapist, but I am always interested in how others organize their stuff and their ways of doing things as music therapists.

My primary ways to organize things - anything - include color-coding and thematic groupings. I use color to indicate some of these groupings so I can find things easily (or more easily, I guess). I also like to put things together based on how I use them. It is not usually evident to others why I have a classroom set of shaker eggs along with rhythm sticks and wrist bells grouped together in one box. For me, it makes sense because I use those instruments more than others. Other people do not always understand my logic, but my organization does not have to make sense to anyone other me.

My current project (AKA, putting the storage room back together before 10:20 this morning) has superseded any and all other work this week. I am using the air conditioning leak as an opportunity to organize materials that I had not worked on in a long time. I have found a couple of stashes of laminated materials that have not made it into my visual storage system (which was not affected by the leak, thank goodness). My goal for this morning is to reload the cabinet (which we have moved to a corner of the room) and to get the interns' desks back into the closet. They have decided to change the configuration of where their desks go, so we will be changing up the format of the room.

Organizing your spaces are very important. In my storage room/intern office, there are three electrical outlets. That means that there are three places that computers can live and get power. That has limited the places that interns can have their desks. They were stuck at the end of the room because I wanted my desk to be close to the door so I could work on the computer and still monitor music therapy services. I have since moved to another location in the area, so I no longer have a desk or computer in that space. That leaves that outlet available. One intern will be in the general area where my desk used to be and the other intern will be in the place where they were last week. Things will be a bit more organized since I have a bit more space (had to throw away quite a bit of stuff due to water damage). I have also found bits and pieces that belong in other places, so I am putting those away when I find them. Other things will go into my office space - I have cabinets in there that are about half-full. It is my short-term goal to move the drum set into the storage space, so I want to use the rest of the space in a way that helps me be organized rather than be my current scattered self.

As I have been working on getting carpets dried out and sorting through things long neglected, I have been thinking about the other systems that I have in my work life. I use colors to indicate different goal areas. If I am looking for something that addresses motor goal development, I automatically reach for one of my red folders. If I want something that is academic in nature, I go for a yellow folder. To indicate things that have more than one primary goal (which almost all of my TMEs have), I use colored dot stickers on the title edge of the folder to indicate those additional goal areas. It is not unusual for one of my folders to have several different dots on the edge of the folders - remember that everything we do in sessions has multiple benefits for our clients and for us. This system helps me to find materials a bit more quickly than alphabetization of titles (which I also still do, but the alphabet is not the most efficient way for me to find things). I also use colors to group items. This color system has little to do with the TME color coding system, but it is also helpful for me. I use colors to indicate my ideas for group sessions - the color coding changes on a regular basis (since I have a rotation of super sticky post-it notes), but it is also effective for me. So, this week, all of the groups from a particular pod have been planned on green sticky notes. The other pod's groups have been on blue sticky notes. When I need to plan for more group types, I use other colors and colorful boxes to organize. I am getting ready to impose a system on other people - I have decided to go with both color and pattern. Some of my clients (and possibly, some of the staff members that I work with) do not perceive color, so patterns will be an additional prompt for those who cannot distinguish between yellow and blue or other patterns. So, there will be a pattern or shape, outlined in black, in addition to color coding. I could probably remove color from the organization system completely, but I like the way color looks, so color and pattern it is! After all, I get to decide these things!!

Thanks for going through these ideas with me this morning. I am going to head into work early so I can get most of the things put back into the room before my interns arrive and start their part of the organization. I also have to do intern supervision this morning, so I need to get my stuff back into the room before we start that process. Time to head out into the very early morning to get this day going. Into the known to make things more organized!! See you tomorrow.