Blogger Stacy Dillon

Getting Organized

Image from creative commons reuse search "post its" - source Hyper Island FB
Image from creative commons reuse search “post its” – source Hyper Island FB

As summer winds down some public librarians are feeling thankful and school librarians are gearing up.  I have spent a considerable amount of time planning my year (and realizing that some of those plans will get sidelined).  Each year for the past several school years, I have tried some new organizational methods, but have yet to find something with staying power that smooths transitions and helps me in my day to day life.

I was excited when earlier in the summer #readadv had a chat on this very subject. How do librarians get and stay organized?  What is working for other people?  The storify for this chat can be found here.

It was interesting because folks definitely seemed to use a variety of tools – demonstrating that no one method works for “all the things”.  Being of a certain age myself, I have to say that there is an appeal to some of the analog methods and I am more likely to remember something if I write it down on a post-it than if I type it into my google calendar.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I live off my google calendar for the majority of my in the moment time, but when in comes to actual planning, I need something more visual.

Enter bullet journal.  Some folks have been talking about this on twitter and in blog posts for a while, and this is the method I have decided to experiment with for my overall planning of the school year.  The beauty of this system for me is that it seems infinitely tweakable to allow for my own idiosyncrasies.  I can color code, add post-its (and stickers!), dog ear pages, and blend as much of my outside of school life as my teaching life as I see fit.

I will check back in with you all later to see if I can make this one stick!

How do you all keep your library lives organized?

2 comments

  1. Minetta Lippert

    Your post introduced me to idea of bullet journaling, and let me say that the bullet journal video makes my librarian heart sing! I started my very own bullet journal a week ago, and so far I love it. It seems to be the perfect method for keeping all my lists compiled in one place. Thanks for the inspiration!

  2. Stacy Dillon

    Yay! I hope it works out for you!

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