Friday - Thinking About Systems Again

Okay, I'm going to say it.

One of the best things about not having a music therapy intern right now is being able to put some of my systems back into place without having to explain those same systems. 

I am taking time on Fridays to organize things in my areas. Today's focus is my office where things are piled on the floor. Since I have the entire morning, I am going to take things out of the office, sort them, and then take things to my car that no longer need to be at work. I work two hours with students today, so the other six hours will be spent in setting up my office area in a better way than it is at this moment. I made progress last week in the storage room/intern office. The drum set is up and accessible in the closet, and I have moved all of my task box creation materials to the other side of things. I will need to figure out some storage options, but that will happen by the time I get interns back again. For the moment, my office is the priority.

I enjoy being able to put systems together to help me work better, more efficiently, and with less messing around with trying to find things when I need them. As I write about often, I like it when everything has its place, but I often struggle with that practice. It is complicated when I share my space with other music therapists who do not understand that I find it imperative to have such an organization system available to me at all times. So, I work on getting my systems put together in a way that other people will understand easily. Sometimes interns can understand what I am doing, and sometimes they do not.

I am hoping to clear out all of my office things this morning, sort through it all, and then put things back where I want them to stay. I will label their locations so I am apt to put things back where I get things from during the weeks and months. I will use hooks and baskets and boxes to help me store and organize things. 

My co-worker in the Creative Arts Therapy part of our school, the Art Therapist, uses pictures and colors to organize her art materials. Sensory items are one of the colors of the rainbow with painting supplies another color. She struggles with other people using the system, but it is getting better with explicit training. Her comments are that the grownups are the worst at matching the colors and the pictures on each basket and storage space. Our students know to match the color and the pictures. I will not have students putting instruments away very often, so I only have to worry about teaching my interns my system and then expecting that they will comply with the system.

I already have storage systems in place in my music therapy room - each cabinet has a function. Functional storage seems to work out the best for me. I like it when materials for one project are close to each other so I don't have to move from place to place to gather the things I need. I have a cabinet for string instruments and another one for toys and manipulatives. Everything is labeled and goes inside the specified cabinet. I am not too worried about whether the box of plastic horses goes in the exact same spot every time, as long as the box ends up in the cabinet. With some of the things in my storage area and office, I want them to go back exactly, so I want to do more obvious labeling to help others understand what I need to happen and where I need things to be.

I am making progress, and I am going to clean up my office today to make it a bit less cluttered and messy and a bit more comfortable to chat in. It is past time to do this, so I am looking forward to the ending. Let's hope that it is finished at the end of today...