Clutter-Free Week #3: What have I gotten in to???

I went in to my classroom on Tuesday. I was so stoked. I had my camera, I had my rules for dealing with the clutter, and I had my plan of attack.

You wouldn't believe how quickly I got to step 3.

...The trouble was I skipped Steps 1 and 2. It took nearly an hour before I even made it to my classroom. There was such a buzz of excitement amongst staff who were so happy to see each other after the summer holidays, that it was virtually impossible to not give in and start handing out hugs.

Regardless, I eventually made it into the room and did my best to stare down the shelves. A wall-to-wall shelving unit filled haphazardly by a team of unfocussed and unmotivated eleven year olds can hold an AWFUL lot of stuff. I thought if I just gave it The Look (you teachers know the one I'm talking about), the clutter might sort itself out. No such luck. I guess, as a third year teacher, that's one more thing I will have to work on.

Alright then. We'll do this the HARD way. That's code for manually and autonimously. That's code for I pulled absolutely everything out by hand. 1pm rolled around and here I was.

No, that's not me smiling. That's a teacher buddy that is about to start his first year. I was multitasking (that's sure to earn me SOME points, right?) and helping him get himself sorted as I tried to do the same for myself.

But this is what came off shelves and what I faced this morning when I returned. The magic elves did NOT show up, despite leaving out cookies and shotglasses of Starbucks, so I had to deal with it myself.

Not fun and not done (and the clock isn't working either).

But the shelves have been cleaned and I got started on refilling them.

Tomorrow's mission is to get the rest of the mess off the desks, start thinking about displays and try to catch up with Jodi's mounting pile of tips and tasks.

All in all, I'm feeling good about this mission. I don't suspect I will ever make it to the "hall of tidy-fame" (where all the awards are level, aligned, alphabetised, and colour-coded) but it's better already. And that's why I joined in in the first place.