Tidiness / organisation tips

[Dyspraxic-teacher]

Hi all,

first proper post here.....

As I read through a few posts, not alone in being untidy.... incapable of keeping even 1 room clean from mess.

I am very lucky that my employers are very supportive (at this moment) but i am the joke of my workplace.

This academic year I want to find strategies to help me become better at these skills, as I have found strategies to improve other areas of my dyspraxia.

Any tips you have found that works for you that I could try?

[Tom fod]

Hi and welcome and apologies for a lack of reply to your post thus far. I can't say I have been busy keeping my flat tidy 8-)

So by tidyness are you talking rethe organisation of your class related paperwork, lesson plans DfE gumpf etc or is it physical tidyness of the rooms you teach from? Is there any scope to delegate aspects of this? Apologies for my ignorance . I'm not a teaher and I'm a man 8-)

[mediastar]

I should love to hear any tips and strategies you have for being tidy, my living room looks like an episode of "I'm a Hoarder, Buried Alive!"

The only tip I have is that I carry a certain brand of bag (well known for it's simian trademark shall we say? Other bags are available) every day as it is full of pockets for my bits and pieces and it has a clip for me to attach my bus pass!

[katherine100]

Hello,

Sorry for the slow reply. I'm quite new to the site and just saw your post.

I'm a teacher too (although I'm off work at the moment on maternity leave). I think teaching is such a hard job for us dyspraxics! It involves so much multi-tasking and we are handed piles of paperwork every day. My classroom used to be a bomb site when I started out teaching but I learnt to become much tidier.

My classroom would still get really messy during each day but I'd always stay each evening and give it a good sort out. I know this can be hard, especially those days when you feel overwhelmed and exhausted, and when you've got a ton of other things to do, but it really is worth it. I'd time myself so it didn't take forever. Say half an hour to sort the whole room and I'd divide the room into sections and I'd give myself 10 mins to quickly tidy each. I just found that helped with motivating myself and staying on track.

I also brought a filing cabinet and put it in my classroom, then made sure I actually used it! I have to admit I still managed to loose things though, for all my efforts! But I learnt to tame the paperwork etc to a large extent. I also always went into school for at least a day each half term/holiday to have a proper sort out.

Anyway, for all our challenges I think the teaching profession is still lucky to have us! Like me you have probably found lots of things hard to learn in life which makes for a patient teacher with lots of emphathy. So good luck with keeping your room tidier and hang in there!

Katherine

[Tom fod]

I should love to hear any tips and strategies you have for being tidy, my living room looks like an episode of "I'm a Hoarder, Buried Alive!"

The only tip I have is that I carry a certain brand of bag (well known for it's simian trademark shall we say? Other bags are available) every day as it is full of pockets for my bits and pieces and it has a clip for me to attach my bus pass!

Welcome

I'm a self confessed hoarder too and like to have garments with closable pockets, though I sometimes experience 'pocket panic' if my wallet/phone etc ends up in another pocket from the one I thought it was in

As long as you have no financial interest in and don't receive payment, there is no problem with you saying who makes the bag.

[pixiewithdocs]

Hi, I'm also new and found your post while browsing around.
I'm an ESL teacher and had one 2-term job in a 'real' school with lots of international students. I empathise with you, as I was not renewed because of disorganisation, essentially.
Some good tips I was given that helped what I feel to be my dyspraxia-related problems included bulldog-clipping a piece of paper to the front of my teacher diary/register book and using it as a daily list to add requests from students and colleagues, notes on homework to go over, any tasks that came up during the day etc. Then when I had a free period or after school I could sort everything into its appropriate actionable space, like emails and lesson planning....when I had organised my time well enough to do so!
One of my problems was that I didn't have my own classroom so laying out my own space was particularly difficult. If you are lucky enough to have your own room do you have a cupboard space or a staffroom desk where you could base yourself and keep boxes for all homework to process, lists of lesson plans and coursebooks etc? I think trying to keep track of everything between home and work makes things particularly difficult for us spraxy peeps as teachers.
I've also developed some useful strategies for keeping my house tidy, which is an ongoing issue as I have been living as a boarder or lodger or with family for the last 2 years, without all of my stuff in one place! But for my bedroom I organise spaces into sections so that if everything is scattered everywhere but I can't dedicate much time to a sort-out I can put clothes, hair/makeup/jewellery etc, technology, books, paperwork and personal mementos/trinkets in different places in my room and revisit one or a few of the sections for a proper sortout later. This means I can clear the floor and my bed and feel like I have a working space for whatever task I need to do, or just come home and not feel that 'oh Christ look at this tip, I'm a useless messy waste of space' feeling.
Hope this helps