The “Organizationally Challenged” [Video 2/3]

Hey, what’s up? I’m Seth Perler and I’m here with segment 2/3 on the challenge of organization. If you are a student who’s challenged by organization, or you’re a parent of the kid, these videos are for you. You might want to check out video 1 before you check out this one. If you haven’t seen it already this one, I’m going to talk about ‘home’. You have to have homes for things. So at this point, if you watch video one, you’ve cleared away hopefully everything that you don’t need. Like old clothes that no longer fit or you no longer wear, old books you no longer read, old toys you no longer play with, old papers you no longer need, everything you can if you can minimize. Stop and get down to the basics of what you actually need. We live in a very materialistic world. If you can really get it down to what you need and want to have and what you actually use, you’ll be in a really good place. You’re going to be really decluttered and now we have to do is the stuff that you have you need to have homes if you want to be organized. You want to overcome this organization and really create a life where you can manage anything and everything, any project you want to do, and any career you want to do in your future. You have to have a way to organize that works.

So first you got rid of stuff, and now you have to have a home with the stuff. What does that mean? What that means is you have to have a place to put things that’s a dedicated place that you generally used to put things. The problem is that people get over-organized. People who are disorganized by nature try to get over-organized and have little teeny tiny places for every single thing. Don’t do that. Keep it simple. Let me explain what I mean. First of all labels. You need to label things. Tape everything in the box has to do with paper. Okay, so it’s very simple very easy to use, and is labeled. It’s a home and that there’s no confusion about anything. In fact, that fixes things to other things. I would put in here next. I have a box for math. Label protractors, compasses, calculators, anything that has to do with math will be in the math box. It does not have to be complicated. Okay, you can keep it very simple. This says paper clips, in there are also binder clips near anything similar to paper clips, even twist ties are in there. So just things that are paper clip-ish I would put in here. So those are a few examples of home. Now the labels have to be clear. Otherwise, people put things in the wrong places. Once you start doing that your organizational challenges are going to creep up again because you’re going to be getting things into the wrong places. My students do not get confused about where the recycling goes, where trash goes, because it’s very clearly labeled to recycle their papers. This is a science holder. It’s a home for science. Only the rule is that if you are messy with papers and you don’t put papers in the right place, at the very least don’t put your paper in the wrong folder. So don’t put social studies into science or don’t put math into the same folder. If you’re not feeling like putting it in there the moment, at least leave it loose in the backpack and get it later just. Jamming it in your planner and organizer later, or something like that, or put it in a queue, which I’ll talk about in a minute.

Your folders are very specific to the subjects. There’s the LA folder. There’s a social studies folder very clearly labeled very simple. They’re labeled front back. And this one is the queue folder. This is a catch-all, this is the folder for anything and everything important. You can jam random papers in here if you want, but this is a home for anything that needs to be done or anything that needs to be turned in. Study guide, the fact that you’re going to have a test on, a rubric that relates to a project that you’re currently working on, anything live goes in the queue. That’s a great home. People who are not naturally organized don’t systematize very well. Naturally, their brains don’t systematize certain things particularly, things they’re not interested in. So, for example, your homework papers, you may not be systematized very well. That’s why it’s so important to have these homes.

Another home is the sacred study space. You want a home or where you do your homework in. Your studying in a sacred place where nothing else goes. You don’t put any distractions there. It’s a sacred place and the sacred home for you to be able to focus and do your homework. You need a sacred place, that’s a good home to have.

That’s pretty much what I want to say about home. So again, organization, the first thing you want to do is get rid of the stuff. The second thing you need to do is to create a home for the things that you do. We’ll get onto the next video, number three. I’ll see you in a minute.