Weekend Things: Getting Organized and Setting Work/Home Boundaries

I honestly believe that a well spent winter weekend is filled with boozy brunches, books, and warm blankets. Today, however, I swapped the Bellini for a cup of coffee and decided to spend a large part of my Saturday planning out the next few months of my life.  My focus for the first half of this year is going to be organization and sticking to schedules.  The biggest hindrance to my organization in the last 6 months has been (1) my propensity to accumulate too much teacher stuff, and (2) prioritizing everything and not setting adequate boundaries.

If you know me well, you know that I love creating massive (unrealistic) to-do lists, writing in multiple notebooks, and making daily schedules.  This usually means I end up carrying a lot of unnecessary things around with me (not to mention whatever novel has made a home in my bag).

I've decided that I need to de-clutter my bag. Notice that I DIDN'T say "de-clutter my life," as I don't believe that idea actually exists as reality for teachers/grad students/people under 60 who work full time jobs.  Anyway, I made this decision to eliminate the clutter not because I was overwhelmed, but because the weight of my bag(s) on my shoulders had started to break off the ends of my hair, resulting in a trim-turned-haircut I hadn't intended to get.  I'm not a fan of those kinds of surprises.

As a teacher, it's so easy to accumulate stacks and stacks of crap.  Since moving to Baltimore and teaching in a new school, I'd fallen back into the horrid habit of keeping every paper my kids turned in, and also not grading fast enough.  Every evening, I took endless stacks of papers home to grade, only to go home and pass out on the couch. Every morning, I brought those same papers back to school, ungraded.  It was an ugly, vicious cycle, and I looked like a bag lady with awful split ends.

Bag #1: wallet, personal computer, 2 notebooks, sticky notes, pens, grad school books, random unfinished novel for leisurely reading, lotion, cosmetics

Bag #2: work computer and charger, 6 stacks of ungraded assignments, grade book, pens, sticky notes, notebook, work phone and charger, student novel for unit study

Lunch bag: food that I barely have time to eat at work, but I keep filling it up just in case

After the hair tragedy, I was determined to become a one bag woman.  I realized that I was working at work for 9 hours everyday, and working at home for 3 more.  I needed to set some boundaries.  So, around November, I started carrying one small purse to and from work on the days I didn't have class, and a bag big enough for my personal computer on the days I went straight from work to class. (Oh, and my lunch bag!) Schoolwork stayed in my classroom.  Whatever I didn't finish one day would be there waiting for me the next.  For several weeks, my coworkers thought I was preparing to quit. HA!

What's more important is that my hair is FLOURISHING!

Fast-forward to mid-January, and my one bag has become larger and heavier (Hair is still flourishing though!).  It is, once again, time to downsize! 

My motto this year is "Work smarter, not harder."

With this in mind, I made a list of daily essentials. If it's not on this list, it isn't going in my bag!

1. Passion Planner

2. Sticky Note pad & 2 pens

3. 4 cosmetic products

4. Personal Computer & charger

5. Work phone, personal phone and charger

6. Wallet

Here's to lighter bags, longer hair, and solid work/home boundaries! What's on your list of essentials?

Next up: actually using my Passion Planner!