Are We Pack Rats?

In his column in the January/February 2013 issue of Exchange, management consultant Dennis Vicars observed: "ECE professionals are pack rats by nature. We throw out nothing and believe that someday we will use everything we keep. All too often we allow these materials to creep out of the shelves, closets, bookshelves, boxes, and cubbies making our rooms and offices look like the neighborhood yard sale. To a parent’s eye, we look disorganized."

Vicars offered these suggestions for making our spaces more organized:

• Ask each teacher to clean and organize his or her teacher cabinets, closets, and shelves and maintain these on a regular basis.
• Ask a teacher to clean and organize the supply closet. Rotate the teacher each month, or as often as necessary.
• Clean and organize the front desk area. The management team needs to be organized, too.
• Walk through the classrooms. Partner with the teachers in each classroom to identify areas that can be de-cluttered. Take a before picture. Give teachers a couple of days to de-clutter the area, then take an after photo to show them the progress they’ve made. Do this in each classroom.
• Walk into your office as a parent would and look at it with a fresh set of eyes. What do you see? Is it clean and organized? If not, put time on your calendar each day for the next five days to clean off your desk; organize bookshelves; dust your desk, cabinets, and lamps; and clean your computer.

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