What are the ways you organize as a teacher? Are you Team Binder or Team Files? Team Paper Planner or Team Digital? Team Plan-a-Week-Ahead or Team Fly-by-the-Seat-of-Your-Pants?

I’ve tried binders. Love the idea, but I just couldn’t get into it. I love my file cabinet and file folders! It just makes sense to me. I used to write down my lesson plans but making the transition to digital save a lot of time. I still need a good monthly planner in my hands though. And I’m still a little combo of the last one.

In this post, I will show you 3 helpful ways you can get and stay organized as a teacher. I’ll share with you that creating a plan for yourself that will make your teacher life better and happier.

Organize Your Teacher and Class Materials

It’s plain and simple. Do it! I can’t stress enough how important this is. Your environment is a reflection of what’s going on inwardly. If you’re stress out, most likely your environment is not the tidiest.

Organization is an effective and simple way to keep down the crazy. Make it a priority this upcoming year to find a good way for you to organize teaching materials, supplies, next week’s materials, and your desk.

The system I found that works for me is using two 10 drawer towers. One tower is labeled the days of the week for me to put all the copied papers, read alouds, fun activities in for that day. The last few drawers are things like Sub Tub, Scholastic News, Field Trips, and Misc. The other tower is for each week in the quarter. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

For class materials, I was under the impression that more meant better. This is not always the case. You math manipulatives don’t need to be spilling over in different parts of your classroom. Organize your manipulatives in drawers, bins, or tubs. Label each so you can easily find what you’re looking for. I have the math manipulatives that I use often arranged on a cart that is under our math focus wall. The other materials are in the cabinet that I get out when needed.

Find something (quick) that works. Why quick? Because the quicker you get organized the quicker you are to reducing stress in that part of your job!

Batch Plan Your Week, Month, and Quarter

Oh, this is huge! Batch planning is when you plan for weeks out. It may seem overwhelming but if you have your ducks in a row before this, then it’s a breeze.

If you’re making predictable activities for your students then you already have a framework to plan. Then you can plan out at least next week and maybe more weeks and then you’re done!

The easiest example of this is spelling list. You know you have to pass them out every week. Instead of printing just that week’s print the whole quarter’s worth. Boom! One less thing to occupy brain space.

Here’s the catch- You’ll need an organization system so you remember where you put them! This is where the second 10 drawer tower comes in play for me. I’ll print off a quarter’s worth of spelling lists and put them straight in that specific week’s drawer.

Another reason why I like file folders- I can place those folders in one of those drawers! If I haven’t settled on what activity I’m going to use, I’ll put the whole folder in that week’s drawer to decide later. That way it’s already set out and ready for me when it’s time.

Set a Consistent Schedule for Your To Do List

This is basically like a permanent To Do list for every week.

I’ll be honest, I’m a super inconsistent grade accountant. I would put in grades weeks later when I finally made myself sit down to do it. That’s not a good system for effective communication to parents. Ideally it would be every Friday, right? Putting all the week’s grades in before going home and you’re done.

But for me that’s just not realistic. It’s a recipe for failure and low self esteem if I constantly have that expectation on myself. I settled on Tuesday. That way any make up tests from Friday can be done on Monday and then by Tuesday I can enter all the grades. Because I Cut Back on Grades, it is so quick for me to enter grades on a specific day.

There are some things that you have to do once a week on a certain day but other things you’ll find yourself doing every day. I found that changing the date the day before means I don’t have to do it the next morning. Something simple like that makes a huge difference. I also set out the next day’s materials on my desk so I’m ready to start.

Take some time to sort out your tasks and give them a certain day or a certain time of day for you to do them. It’ll get you into a system that hopefully will lower stress and help you be more effective as a teacher!

Find a system that makes sense to you how to organize your teacher space and materials. Batch planning and prepping will set you up to be prepared for the weeks ahead. Write down what you can do each day to help keep you on a consistent schedule that will help you get things done.

How can you help yourself this next year in your organization, batch planning, or setting a schedule for your to do list?