Systems in Music Therapy: Databases, Access Files, and all Things Google

I am someone who yearns to be organized but who saves my successful organization systems for things other than my house. My clinic area is organized, arranged, and completely functional for what I use it for. My house is not, and my house is always a place where I want to be better (but rarely am better).

My best organization system is my electronic systems. While I prefer paper and pen for my planning and brainstorming processes, I am all about digital organization structures. In my life, I use Google Forms, Access, and Excel the most. Of the three, the most enigmatic for me is Access, but it works for what I need it to do.

Access is what I use for my clinical documentation. Each client has a file and the system allows me to make forms that keep records of all points of contact with every client for the duration of their stay with us. I can also move these files around as classroom assignments change and as clients leave and then return to our program. I do not know much, but I know enough to set up the database and make it work for me. At the end of it all, I can print out a spreadsheet of all points of contact with my clients when it is needed. I have a series of checkboxes and dropdown menus to help make doing up to 50 client notes per day faster. It has been a system that I have been using since 2017, and I am comfortable with using Access for that purpose. One of these days (quest for 2023??), I will learn more about Access and how it can be used for various things.

Excel is the program that I know the best and is the one that I go for first when putting together lists of information. I have a large Excel file for my therapeutic music experience list. It includes so much information in that one file (multiple, cloud-based copies of this list as well...) that I would be lost if something ever happened to it. It holds the information and work of about 20 interns in addition to all of my own work over 30+ years.

My most recent addition to my digital organization milieu is Google Forms. I use it for just about everything that requires responses from someone other than me. If I ever get motivated to start, I may end up transferring information from my Excel file of TMEs into Google. I could add more keywords and some different features if I did this - I know how to set those things up, but I'm not sure I will ever get that motivated.

The thing that I like about Google Forms is that I can easily see aggregates of information, but I can also download everything into a spreadsheet similar to Excel's format. As a person who is most familiar with Excel, this makes me feel comfortable. It is nice to work within a system that is familiar to me.

I am going to be establishing a Google file for my inventory list, one for here at home and one for my materials at work. This will probably be my project while I have no interns at the facility - a stretch from February through June, probably. I have an inventory started for both places (in Excel), but I think that I can do more things if I put the information into a Google form. I can also make different forms for different types of materials - so a form for visual aids and another for instruments. Once the information is included, I can then combine the information into one ginormous master spreadsheet. That's a very satisfying result and one that I have experienced before with other elements of my life.

What systems do you use to arrange elements of your life? What do you arrange in this way? I think that I could use Google Forms to arrange intern assignments - thought for interns #36 and 37 - they could finish up the form, upload their file, and that would give me an emailed prompt that the assignment is finished. I could also set specific due dates via a calendar that could prompt me to ensure that interns finish tasks as assigned or talk to me about changing their due dates. That's something we've been struggling with lately...Lots of things to think about here. I will probably spend some time thinking about and trying to work within the platform to see if I can get what I want to get from this sort of system. Lots and lots to think about...

Happy Friday.