September 10, 2024 • 31 mins
Ever wondered why maintaining a tidy workspace seems impossible despite your best efforts? Join us as Christine and I unpack our personal struggles with clutter—from Christine's double-duty roles at school creating chaos in her office and classroom, to my ongoing battle with post-it notes overtaking my desk. We get candid about how life's interruptions often derail our organizational goals and share the practical strategies that help us reclaim order in our environments.
Discover the profound impact clutter has on mental well-being and the culture of shared spaces, especially in educational settings. We discuss actionable tips like creating routines, scheduling decluttering sessions, and leveraging accountability partners. Plus, don’t miss our game-changing five-minute rule to beat procrastination and our 30-day decluttering challenge tailored for teachers. Tune in for thoughtful gift-giving ideas and creative solutions to manage daily clutter, ensuring a more organized and stress-free work environment.
Buy The Minimalist Teacher book from ASCD+ISTE.
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about paring down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusialski-Bornemann and
Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In this episode we tackle the challenge of how to
sustain our spaces once we'vegone through the decluttering
process.
We talk about why it's soimportant and what makes it
challenging to maintain.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hello everyone, welcome to today's episode of
the Minimalist Educator Podcast.
Today, christine and I aretalking about a topic that comes
up as a question quite often atthe end of sessions, if we're
talking about declutteringphysical spaces.
So we today are going to talkabout sustaining a decluttered
(01:11):
space.
And before we start, how areyou today, chrissy?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I'm really good.
As I mentioned to you before westarted recording, I have
slight concerns, as sustainingthese decluttered spaces may not
be my forte.
It is a tricky one for me, butI know you have a lot of
expertise and I have thetheoretical idea of what it's
all about.
(01:36):
But maybe it's a good reminderfor me as well about how to keep
on with these declutteredspaces.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, and I think that's a good point that you
bring up, because we have to bereal about, um, like, no one is
going to be a hundred percentdecluttered all the time.
It's just really hard becauselife goes on and you, you know,
let things pile up or whateverhappens, and so I think it's
important that you're just veryhonest.
(02:03):
We're all honest about you know, our spaces are not always
decluttered consistently.
it's just not not real life it'snot well, maybe for some people
, but, right, maybe not for us,but maybe for some people who
are just, you know, it's justthe easy, really easy them, and
(02:24):
I think that's why it'simportant we talk about this,
because it is fairly hard for alot of people to be able to
sustain a space that you know,you put the effort into
decluttering it, and that mightbe in your house, like a closet
or a drawer or part of yourclassroom, a cupboard or your
office or something.
(02:44):
So it doesn't matter what space,but it is a lot of time and
energy to spend cleaning it out,sorting it out, organizing it,
getting rid of whatever needs tobe gotten rid of, and then it's
a little heartbreaking when yousee it start to crumble in
front of you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is, it definitely is, but there's hope, there is
hope for us.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
There definitely is.
So I think maybe we can firsttalk about why it is hard to
sustain a decluttered space,because I think that's just part
of real life, but can you sharea little bit about why it's
hard for you?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Can you share a little bit about, like why it's
hard for you?
Yeah, I think the currentsituation that's making it
challenging for me.
So, as we're recording this, Ihave a dual role at my school,
so I work across two classroomsand then I'm also in office
working with curriculum.
So what happens at the end ofmy curriculum days is, I know I
(03:45):
have to do a quick pivot backinto the classroom and then,
after I'm finished in theclassroom, I don't want to leave
the materials I've been usingin the room for my team teacher,
but I also want to go homebecause it's the weekend.
So I end up taking thematerials from the classroom,
putting it in my office andgoing home and then when I get
(04:08):
back into my curriculum days,I'm now thinking about
curriculum and I'm not thinkingabout the classroom anymore.
So I think it's a byproduct ofme not quite working out my
systems of managing my dualroles.
So I think that's what'shappening to me at the moment.
What about for you?
What's making it hard for you?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That's a really good point that you've made about the
dual roles, because I know thatthere's a lot of teachers who
do like a team teach and are incurriculum or something like
that.
So I can imagine there's a lotof people who can relate to that
, a lot of people who can relateto that.
For me, I it's kind of a thingthat happens in my office, so I
(04:56):
will.
I, when we were teaching inSingapore, I decided that I
wasn't going to use post-itsanymore because I was writing
stuff down and then stickingthem in my planner and then
losing them and you know, and soI'm like, okay, I'm not gonna
do post-its anymore, I'm justgonna have a notebook.
So everything's in one spot,and that was fine.
But in recent weeks or months,maybe now, um, I've shifted back
(05:19):
to using post-its because Ifeel like it's um, like I'll
write one to do per post it andthen I kind of like a caban I
think it's pronounced cabanboard where you like sort out
your priorities by week.
So what I'll do, it's like myown modified version.
I'll write all of my things onmy post-its and then I'll sort
(05:40):
them out Like these are thethings I'm going to do today and
then, like you know, throughoutthe week, and so when I do the
thing, then I can scrunch up mypost-it, toss it away.
It's a good dopamine boost.
But I find that what I've beendoing is, because I travel quite
a bit, I will then havepost-its in the places that I'm
(06:00):
at and then they travel with meand now, like, I have a sleeve
of some some stuff from our book, but in there are a bunch of
post-its with some to-dos onthere that I haven't resurfaced
because I'm like, oh, those,whatever, they're fine, but
that's where I kind of get lostin my clutter is like in the
(06:22):
to-do list, and then my officegets a little like posted,
posted it quite much, yeah,Anything can be a verb, but so
that's where that's where I kindof get lost in a mess.
And so then I have gotten betterabout like just reviewing them,
(06:43):
like, okay, yeah, these areactually done things so I can
throw those away.
But that's kind of how it isfor me and it seems it doesn't
sound like a very big mess, butit feels like a mental mess
because there's a lot of thingswritten out that I know that I
need to do and you know itdoesn't have to live in my mind.
(07:03):
It can be on the paper.
Know that I need to do and areyou know.
It doesn't have to live in mymind, it can be on the paper.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, it feels very messy and sometimes like not
sustainable because I'm like Ican't travel with my postage for
sure, yeah, but that is trickythough, because you you
basically have to move youroffice with you as you're moving
around from place to placedoing your your different roles
yeah, and I think you knowthere's a lot of reasons why
(07:28):
people have a hard timesustaining a space or even
beginning the decluttering, butit all really comes down to like
creating the habit, right soit's a new habit to have to
sustain or maintain adecluttered space.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So it's something that we have to work at.
It's not just something that'sgoing to automatically happen,
and we have to really recognizethat and figure out some ways
that's going to work, and we'lltalk about a few ways to be able
to do that in a moment.
But so how do you feel thenwhen you come back in, say
Monday, and your pile of stufffrom your classroom is sitting
(08:06):
there?
But you're like, oh, I need tolike weed through this to get to
my curriculum stuff?
Like, does that cause you somestress or anything?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sometimes it depends, sometimes it becomes a little
bit of a blind spot and I don'tsee the pile for a few days, and
that's OK.
But I do share an office, sothere is the potential there
that I'm adding to that awfulclutter stress that some people
(08:34):
feel, to the other people that Ishare my office with, which I
don't want to do, I don't wantto add on anything to anybody
else's plate, but just every nowand then it does bother me, it
does affect me and that's when Ifeel like, okay, I'm going to
put aside 10 minutes, fiveminutes, even before I go home
today, and I'm going to do somesifting through this and get rid
(08:56):
of stuff that doesn't need tobe here.
Or does this stuff need to begiven some feedback and then put
in portfolios?
What am I actually doing withthis work?
So I think, tammy, justlistening to this, that we both
have the aspiration to sustainthese decluttered spaces, but
for both of us there issomething that's a little bit
(09:16):
troubling for us at the moment.
So maybe by the end of thisrecording, maybe for our pair
down point or something, we canboth come up with some sort of
action that we want to take inthe next little bit to see if
that will help us with ourdecluttered spaces.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I like that idea.
I think you mentioned a coupleof really important points on
why it's important to keep thespaces maintained, and one of
them being like it does cause alittle bit of stress, right?
So you come back because I'mthat person where I need to
clean up my space before I leaveit because I don't want to come
back to the pile or whatever,which you know it doesn't always
(09:55):
happen.
But I think when we can reducethe bit of stress or anxiety
around the workplace, it makesus feel better.
And then another point you madewas, like you're in a shared
space and I think a lot ofpeople can relate to that as
well, and so you're recognizingthat, oh, I don't want to
contribute to someone else's.
You know how they might feelcoming into this space.
(10:17):
I wonder, too, how many peopleare aware of that too, like how
their spaces do affect otherpeople that they might share an
office with or share a classroomwith, because I mean, I've been
in that role too, where I washad two co-teachers and both
were very organized, so, likeour systems worked well.
(10:38):
But I can't imagine I think Iwould have had a great amount of
stress had I worked withsomeone who is not as organized
or just had, you know, like Idon't know.
It's not that our classroom wasperfectly organized or like
decluttered, but we just hadsystems for everything, and so
(10:58):
that reduced the amount ofstress I felt with the amount of
stuff we had in the room.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
but working with someone who maybe didn't have
some of those structures wouldcause some, some angst, and you
know, not just for me but foranyone really for sure it
reminds me a lot of when we weredoing the reading around
clutter, uh, in preparation forthe book, and we found all of
(11:25):
that research about how, as youage, especially for women
clutter becomes more and morestressful for you in your life.
I found that absolutelyfascinating and I recognize that
it's absolutely true for mebecause I was one of those
teenagers that, like you know,you couldn't see the floor of my
bedroom.
That was me when I was a kidand it didn't bother me.
(11:48):
It bothered my mum, but itdidn't bother me.
But now, yeah, that pile on mydesk has just that pile has the
potential to bother me now.
So I can absolutely identifymyself within that research that
we were finding out about whilewe were writing the book.
So I think, being mindful ofthat impact especially when we
(12:08):
have you know, most schools arefull of women if we're adding on
to that visual stress forpeople and overwhelm, yeah,
we're not helping the culture inour school, are we?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Right, let's talk about a few ways where we can, a
few tips where we can maybesuggest some ideas for
sustaining and maintainingdecluttered space, and this
might even help even if youhaven't started decluttering yet
.
But you know some ideas for,okay, I've cleaned this out,
(12:43):
feels good.
Now how do I keep it this way?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes, absolutely.
You know, something that hasworked for me over the years is
you know, if you keep moving youhave to get rid of stuff.
But that's quite an extremething to do just to maintain a
decluttered space.
So what are some more feasibleoptions that we have?
I think the first one iscreating a schedule or a routine
(13:08):
.
So at the end of the week or atthe end of the month or the end
of the semester, whatever itmay be, have that habit of I'm
going to do, you know, a day oran hour or a couple of minutes
of doing some decluttering andgetting rid of some stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, I think that that actual putting the task in
your calendar is helpful becauseyou know once we, when we see
it in there, we're more likelyto do it.
And one of the things that Ilearned from um LaVonna, who was
a guest in our first season, um, one of the things that she
often talks about is, like don'treschedule something more than
(13:48):
once.
So if it's something that youhave, so if you've got like 30
minutes blocked out, you knowThursday after school and you're
like, ooh, this thing came up,I need to change that to
tomorrow or next Thursday.
That's the only time you shouldchange it.
So, because we know whathappens then is that we keep
(14:09):
pushing it off and then we neverdo it.
And so we want to make sure that, if it comes up that it has to
be changed, and it needs to beone of those things where it's
like okay, something has reallycome up, not just like, oh, I
don't feel like doing this.
Yes, like let's try to get pastthat, right, because when we
keep doing that, we, just we, wewill never do it, and then it's
(14:31):
just feels we just feel worse,and then it's just feels, we
just feel worse.
Another thing that might bereally helpful is if you have a
co-teacher or accountabilitypartner or teacher down the hall
whoever doesn't matter who itis check in with each other, so
you can have someone to bringyou, bring into this process
with you, and maybe they're noteven in this in the same process
(15:04):
with you, maybe they could careless about having a clear space
.
But as long as you have someoneto talk about it with or, you
know, share the importance ofwhy you're doing this, it makes
you feel more accountable andalso, just, we're social people,
right?
So it's important for us toshare the things that we're
doing with the people that arein our lives.
So if it's important to you,you should share that and bring
(15:26):
someone in with you.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Just thinking about the scheduling thing as well, I
was reminded of.
Have you heard of that fiveminute rule for procrastinators?
Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
It sounds familiar, but I don't recall.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The five minute rule is if you're rescheduling
something, you're putting it off, you don't want to do it
repeatedly, reallyprocrastinating on it.
If you tell yourself I'm justgoing to do it for five minutes
and then, once you get to theend of that, five minutes,
minutes, a lot of the timeyou're in it now and you keep
going.
But if you, if it's so horribleand you're really miserable,
you can stop and at least youfeel like you've, you've given
it a try and I have found thatreally, really helpful.
(16:07):
Um, when I've been taking ontasks that I don't particularly
want to do at that moment, justsay, okay, five minute timer,
let's go.
And it really does.
It really does help to, um, toget you over that hurdle of I
don't want to do it, I don'twant to do this, I don't want to
do it right now.
So that's, that's a good one aswell.
If you do hit that calendarreminder and you think, oh, I
(16:29):
can't imagine anything worseright now, just give it five
minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that feels so non-threatening yeah right you
can do anything for five minutes, it's fine yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Something else I was reading and I found interesting
is just keeping some littlespaces available in your
classroom office, whatever, andit doesn't have to be like a
giant box or anything, but whereyou have like oh, this is the
little box where I put thingsthat I'm going to give to other
teachers or put in the resourceroom.
This is the box where I donatethings.
(17:04):
So I need to remove this fromthe school at the end of the
week.
So having those kind of littledeposit areas that are easily
accessible, which I think is sogreat, like a lot of people at
home will have, like this is mygoodwill bag and I'm going to
take it to the store to drop offfor donation when it's full.
I think that's really helpful,too, to to just maintain your
(17:25):
space.
Cause even when you think aboutlike I've been thinking about,
you know, like getting rid of alot of the clothes in my closet
and I don't even have that manyclothes, but but I'm just going
through them like, oh, I haven'treally worn this, I'm just
gonna toss it in this pile rightnow, which you know, is now a
bag, but it just makes it easyfor me to then, in the moment be
like do am I gonna wear this?
(17:47):
Or I don't like the way thisfits anymore, or something, I'm
gonna put it in this bag.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's just so easy yeah, I've my last few schools.
They've done like once a yearor twice a year.
Though what do you do?
You call them skip bins, or isthat just an Australian thing?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Australian, the giant , big, massive, like industrial
size bins like a dumpster yeah,like a dumpster, of course.
yeah, that's better.
Um, so my last couple ofschools like once a year they'll
have a big dumpster and they'llsay like if you've got anything
to clear out, the dumpster isgoing to be there on these dates
.
But I feel like quite often youcan get into this mode of like
(18:27):
oh, I've only got two days, whatam I going to put in the
dumpster?
So I almost get like apre-dumpster box and then I'm
like preparing what if the nexttime a dumpster shows up, this
is what I'm going to put onthere.
So that's quite helpful too,and you can have a last check
through and make sure youhaven't unwisely put anything in
(18:48):
there before you get rid of it.
But it's helpful to kind ofkeep that in mind.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, no, that's a good idea, something that I
think might be a little.
This tip I think might be alittle harder for maybe some
people, I don't know, but we'vetalked about purposeful
purchasing before in workshopsand webinars and somewhere
within the book and and I dothis often, but it's, you know,
(19:15):
it's it becomes a process ofslowing down what you're doing
and a lot of times we're kind ofjust in a rush, we run into
somewhere, we get what we needand we leave.
But if we spend a little timewhen we're, let's say, you need
to get some new work clothes ornew supplies for school or
whatever, or work, um, beforeyou actually put the things in
your basket or your cart, reallythinking about like, okay, I'm
(19:40):
here to get this, so you go toget it, and you're like you're
you're actually evaluatingbefore you put it in your basket
or your bin.
Some people do that at thecheckout right, where you put
all the stuff in your in yourcart, and then, when you get
there, you're like, I'm gonnaput that to the side, don't need
that, I still have some of that.
So I've seen people do that.
(20:00):
I've done that before, but thatjust shows how you're being
thoughtful about what you'rebringing home, because whatever
you're bringing home is going totake up space, or whatever
you're bringing back to work isgonna take up space and you have
to make sure you have room forit.
So, with that, if you'rebringing something new in, think
(20:21):
about removing something beforeyou put something new there or
even checking what supplies youdo have before putting in the
next order, right?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So unfortunately, that does happen sometimes when
we think, oh, we need some morecraft paper or we need some more
dice or some more base 10blocks, and then actually
there's another cupboard, youknow in the school somewhere
else that has plenty of it thatwe could have made use of.
So I think that's really,really important to make those
(20:55):
careful uh evaluations before wepurchase and restock things.
It reminds me as well when wewere talking to dan tricarico
about um, about subtracting,thank you, and he was talking
about the get rid of 10 things aday.
Do you remember thatconversation?
(21:16):
He was saying, like if you gotrid of 10 things out of your
house every day, by the end ofthe week that's 70 things.
It reminds me of that, thatbeing thoughtful and removing
something when you get somethingnew and all of those good ideas
.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, yeah, and it seems for me the 10 things a day
would sound a little scary.
Okay, but depends, because Idon't have a lot of things in my
house either.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Well, yeah, I mean, if you did it for long enough,
you'd have nothing left right,yeah, right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But if I'm like, okay , I'm going to get a new this,
so I'm going to get rid of thisthing to replace it, so I feel
like for me, that feels a littlemore comfortable, Um, and that
might be more comfortable forsome people too.
It's like, so I'm not, you'rereplacing the thing that you're
you're bringing in withsomething new and you're, you
know, subtracting one thing,which I think is a fair enough
(22:10):
thing to do as well.
I think one of the just kind ofthinking about maybe this as a
last tip before I pare downpointers is and this goes back
to like bringing people in whenwe're going through this kind of
process is to stay inspiredwhile we're trying to stay
decluttered, because it can feellike, oh man, I really let this
(22:34):
get away from me, and now whyshould I do it again?
Because it's just going to getaway from me again.
But it's really like.
This is when I feel like socialmedia can be work to our
advantage, because you can goonto some like minimalist
Instagram reels or, you know,find some good articles that
will keep you inspired, toremind you why it is important
(22:56):
to actually have a space thathas not so much stuff in it,
cause it really does benefit ourmental health, our physical
health, and it's noticeable whenyou like you do feel physically
better when you're like wow, Ijust cleaned out a bunch of
stuff that just has been takingup all this space for so long
and now I feel really goodabsolutely, and you know,
(23:20):
depending on your personalitytype, what you, what you enjoy
doing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
You know if you, if you love, like challenging
yourself or reaching a goal,that could be a way to keep
yourself inspired as well.
I know you've got your um30-day decluttering challenge,
don't you tell me?
Speaker 3 (23:38):
yes, yeah, so that was something that I set up for
this group of teachers in um LA.
They were like having thesesame questions, like how do we
start the process, how do wekeep it going.
So I'm like you know what?
Here's the 30-dayutteringchallenge and it sounds like,
ooh, that's something every day,but they're like very
manageable things.
So it'll.
(23:58):
The challenge will be attachedin the show notes so people can
download that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, Cause I think you know, as someone who likes
to count how many books I readon Goodreads and do things like
that I think some, you know,like a 30 day challenge would be
appealing to me to kind of, youknow, push me over that edge
and get a little bit moremotivated.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
For sure.
So this has been a really goodconversation.
Again, I always love chattingwith you about this.
Yeah, absolutely, but do youhave a pare down pointer for our
listeners for today?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So pare down, pointer .
I think one of the obstaclesthat I have, especially at home,
with decluttering is I'm oftenyou know it's lovely Students
buy you lots of gifts at the endof the year or, you know,
Christmas or teacherappreciation, things like that,
but it's not necessarily thingsthat you would have chosen for
(24:49):
yourself.
So I have a whole selection ofperfumed soaps and candles and
lotions and all sorts of thingsthat I don't want to give away
because I feel like I don't wantto throw them like they were
gifts from my students, you know, I would feel really awful just
to throw them away.
So one thing that I wouldreally like to start doing is
(25:12):
when we have like, our school isvery action-oriented and we are
constantly having drives forpeople less fortunate than
ourselves and they ask forthings like dry goods and
toiletries and things like that.
So I really want to get intothe habit of starting to donate
some of those gifts that arevery thoughtful and kind and
(25:32):
appreciated but are notnecessarily something or just
too numerous for me to usemyself, you know.
So I think that's a good habitfor me to start getting into is
taking those not necessarilywanted gifts and finding an
authentic purpose for them.
What about you?
What's a good pair down pointerfor you?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Oh, that is really.
That's a good one and that'ssuper tricky.
And I'm going to kind of cheathere and play my pair down
pointer off of yours based onsomething that we said.
So, when you were talkingearlier about sharing a space
(26:13):
and being aware of how yourpiles might affect someone else,
right, because you're sharingthat space so you just spoke
about being the receiver of agift and you know they pile up
but also when we're giving gifts, being very thoughtful about
(26:34):
who we're getting something forand why we're getting it.
Because you know we feelcompelled you know, teacher
appreciation, valentine's Day,all of those things to gift
something to someone withoutthinking of what they might do
with it.
With it, right, so I alwayslike gifting a consumable, like
here's a coffee card or a pen,little thing, right, something,
(26:57):
yes, that's usable, that iseaten, drink, drank and drunk
whatever.
Yes, all of those yep, yes, um,and like that makes a
difference.
When you really know someonetoo, right, so you can get the
appropriate gift.
Or if you know that they'relooking for something
specifically, and I think thatwould help reduce the receiver.
(27:20):
On the other side, some of thatstress like oh, I love this gift
, thank you so much.
I appreciate it, but I don'tknow what to do with it because
this is not something I use allthe time.
So I think that it comes tolike that thoughtful purchasing
in general, right?
So not just when we're buyingthings for ourselves, but also
when we're buying things forothers.
(27:41):
So I'm glad that you broughtthat point up, because that's a
real conundrum right here.
It's like do I need anothercoffee mug?
I don't't know, I love coffeeor like tea or whatever, and you
can have mugs at school andmugs at home and all of those
things.
That's fine, but you know thereare limits to the cupboard
space as well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So this is true.
This is true, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
So I think that that's kind of like a two-four
um related pare down pointer.
But now, like we had mentionedearlier that we were going to
share the thing that we weregoing to do to help create that
maintenance in our spaces,because we both have things that
we do that you know kind ofhinder us from staying
(28:24):
decluttered.
So what's your next step goingto be to manage your end of day
pile?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think I'm going to merge two.
Tammy, with your assistants,You're involved in this.
Sorry about that.
So I think what I'm going to do, like I said before, I end up
getting this buildup ofmaterials because I just want to
go home for the weekend andthen, when I get back into my
curriculum days, there it iswaiting for me.
(28:53):
So I think what I might do isthe start of my curriculum days.
The very first thing I do isjust take a couple of minutes to
do some tidying of that space.
I think that's the schedulingpart.
But then I think I'll also hackinto that accountability buddy
situation and maybe startsending you a few little pics of
my office space so you can helpme out with that one, Tammy yes
(29:17):
for sure, happy to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Um, I'm gonna build in pictures as well.
So instead of me bringing mypost-its with me and then having
this weird assortment ofpost-its everywhere, I will take
a photo when I go to travel.
I'll just take a picture of thepost-its that I have on my desk
and bring that with me, so thenI don't have you know stuff and
(29:40):
then I'm like, oh, can't evenremember where those post-its
went.
Was it that important and thatkind of thing.
So I think the picture is anice way to reduce the amount of
, well, the use of post-its I'musing, because you know it can
be a lot, but also then a littlebit of streamlining, because
then I don't have files ofpost-its in multiple places.
(30:03):
Thank you so much for thisconversation, christine.
I think we talked a lot longerthan I thought we were going to
talk about this topic, but Ithink it's a really important
one because I know it's aquestion that comes up very
often from people and so youknow, any tips that we can give
people I think hopefully will behelpful.
So thanks so much for thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thank you.
Some good reminders for me aswell.
Today's episode was brought toyou by Plan Z Professional
Learning Servicesforward-thinking educator
support.
Find out more atplanzplservicescom.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the MinimalistEducator Podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at PlanZPLSon Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
(31:20):
Gaia Moretti.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about paring down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusialski-Bornemann and
Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In this episode we tackle the challenge of how to
sustain our spaces once we'vegone through the decluttering
process.
We talk about why it's soimportant and what makes it
challenging to maintain.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hello everyone, welcome to today's episode of
the Minimalist Educator Podcast.
Today, christine and I aretalking about a topic that comes
up as a question quite often atthe end of sessions, if we're
talking about declutteringphysical spaces.
So we today are going to talkabout sustaining a decluttered
(01:11):
space.
And before we start, how areyou today, chrissy?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I'm really good.
As I mentioned to you before westarted recording, I have
slight concerns, as sustainingthese decluttered spaces may not
be my forte.
It is a tricky one for me, butI know you have a lot of
expertise and I have thetheoretical idea of what it's
all about.
(01:36):
But maybe it's a good reminderfor me as well about how to keep
on with these declutteredspaces.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, and I think that's a good point that you
bring up, because we have to bereal about, um, like, no one is
going to be a hundred percentdecluttered all the time.
It's just really hard becauselife goes on and you, you know,
let things pile up or whateverhappens, and so I think it's
important that you're just veryhonest.
(02:03):
We're all honest about you know, our spaces are not always
decluttered consistently.
it's just not not real life it'snot well, maybe for some people
, but, right, maybe not for us,but maybe for some people who
are just, you know, it's justthe easy, really easy them, and
(02:24):
I think that's why it'simportant we talk about this,
because it is fairly hard for alot of people to be able to
sustain a space that you know,you put the effort into
decluttering it, and that mightbe in your house, like a closet
or a drawer or part of yourclassroom, a cupboard or your
office or something.
(02:44):
So it doesn't matter what space,but it is a lot of time and
energy to spend cleaning it out,sorting it out, organizing it,
getting rid of whatever needs tobe gotten rid of, and then it's
a little heartbreaking when yousee it start to crumble in
front of you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is, it definitely is, but there's hope, there is
hope for us.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
There definitely is.
So I think maybe we can firsttalk about why it is hard to
sustain a decluttered space,because I think that's just part
of real life, but can you sharea little bit about why it's
hard for you?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Can you share a little bit about, like why it's
hard for you?
Yeah, I think the currentsituation that's making it
challenging for me.
So, as we're recording this, Ihave a dual role at my school,
so I work across two classroomsand then I'm also in office
working with curriculum.
So what happens at the end ofmy curriculum days is, I know I
(03:45):
have to do a quick pivot backinto the classroom and then,
after I'm finished in theclassroom, I don't want to leave
the materials I've been usingin the room for my team teacher,
but I also want to go homebecause it's the weekend.
So I end up taking thematerials from the classroom,
putting it in my office andgoing home and then when I get
(04:08):
back into my curriculum days,I'm now thinking about
curriculum and I'm not thinkingabout the classroom anymore.
So I think it's a byproduct ofme not quite working out my
systems of managing my dualroles.
So I think that's what'shappening to me at the moment.
What about for you?
What's making it hard for you?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
That's a really good point that you've made about the
dual roles, because I know thatthere's a lot of teachers who
do like a team teach and are incurriculum or something like
that.
So I can imagine there's a lotof people who can relate to that
, a lot of people who can relateto that.
For me, I it's kind of a thingthat happens in my office, so I
(04:56):
will.
I, when we were teaching inSingapore, I decided that I
wasn't going to use post-itsanymore because I was writing
stuff down and then stickingthem in my planner and then
losing them and you know, and soI'm like, okay, I'm not gonna
do post-its anymore, I'm justgonna have a notebook.
So everything's in one spot,and that was fine.
But in recent weeks or months,maybe now, um, I've shifted back
(05:19):
to using post-its because Ifeel like it's um, like I'll
write one to do per post it andthen I kind of like a caban I
think it's pronounced cabanboard where you like sort out
your priorities by week.
So what I'll do, it's like myown modified version.
I'll write all of my things onmy post-its and then I'll sort
(05:40):
them out Like these are thethings I'm going to do today and
then, like you know, throughoutthe week, and so when I do the
thing, then I can scrunch up mypost-it, toss it away.
It's a good dopamine boost.
But I find that what I've beendoing is, because I travel quite
a bit, I will then havepost-its in the places that I'm
(06:00):
at and then they travel with meand now, like, I have a sleeve
of some some stuff from our book, but in there are a bunch of
post-its with some to-dos onthere that I haven't resurfaced
because I'm like, oh, those,whatever, they're fine, but
that's where I kind of get lostin my clutter is like in the
(06:22):
to-do list, and then my officegets a little like posted,
posted it quite much, yeah,Anything can be a verb, but so
that's where that's where I kindof get lost in a mess.
And so then I have gotten betterabout like just reviewing them,
(06:43):
like, okay, yeah, these areactually done things so I can
throw those away.
But that's kind of how it isfor me and it seems it doesn't
sound like a very big mess, butit feels like a mental mess
because there's a lot of thingswritten out that I know that I
need to do and you know itdoesn't have to live in my mind.
(07:03):
It can be on the paper.
Know that I need to do and areyou know.
It doesn't have to live in mymind, it can be on the paper.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, it feels very messy and sometimes like not
sustainable because I'm like Ican't travel with my postage for
sure, yeah, but that is trickythough, because you you
basically have to move youroffice with you as you're moving
around from place to placedoing your your different roles
yeah, and I think you knowthere's a lot of reasons why
(07:28):
people have a hard timesustaining a space or even
beginning the decluttering, butit all really comes down to like
creating the habit, right soit's a new habit to have to
sustain or maintain adecluttered space.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So it's something that we have to work at.
It's not just something that'sgoing to automatically happen,
and we have to really recognizethat and figure out some ways
that's going to work, and we'lltalk about a few ways to be able
to do that in a moment.
But so how do you feel thenwhen you come back in, say
Monday, and your pile of stufffrom your classroom is sitting
(08:06):
there?
But you're like, oh, I need tolike weed through this to get to
my curriculum stuff?
Like, does that cause you somestress or anything?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sometimes it depends, sometimes it becomes a little
bit of a blind spot and I don'tsee the pile for a few days, and
that's OK.
But I do share an office, sothere is the potential there
that I'm adding to that awfulclutter stress that some people
(08:34):
feel, to the other people that Ishare my office with, which I
don't want to do, I don't wantto add on anything to anybody
else's plate, but just every nowand then it does bother me, it
does affect me and that's when Ifeel like, okay, I'm going to
put aside 10 minutes, fiveminutes, even before I go home
today, and I'm going to do somesifting through this and get rid
(08:56):
of stuff that doesn't need tobe here.
Or does this stuff need to begiven some feedback and then put
in portfolios?
What am I actually doing withthis work?
So I think, tammy, justlistening to this, that we both
have the aspiration to sustainthese decluttered spaces, but
for both of us there issomething that's a little bit
(09:16):
troubling for us at the moment.
So maybe by the end of thisrecording, maybe for our pair
down point or something, we canboth come up with some sort of
action that we want to take inthe next little bit to see if
that will help us with ourdecluttered spaces.
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I like that idea.
I think you mentioned a coupleof really important points on
why it's important to keep thespaces maintained, and one of
them being like it does cause alittle bit of stress, right?
So you come back because I'mthat person where I need to
clean up my space before I leaveit because I don't want to come
back to the pile or whatever,which you know it doesn't always
(09:55):
happen.
But I think when we can reducethe bit of stress or anxiety
around the workplace, it makesus feel better.
And then another point you madewas, like you're in a shared
space and I think a lot ofpeople can relate to that as
well, and so you're recognizingthat, oh, I don't want to
contribute to someone else's.
You know how they might feelcoming into this space.
(10:17):
I wonder, too, how many peopleare aware of that too, like how
their spaces do affect otherpeople that they might share an
office with or share a classroomwith, because I mean, I've been
in that role too, where I washad two co-teachers and both
were very organized, so, likeour systems worked well.
(10:38):
But I can't imagine I think Iwould have had a great amount of
stress had I worked withsomeone who is not as organized
or just had, you know, like Idon't know.
It's not that our classroom wasperfectly organized or like
decluttered, but we just hadsystems for everything, and so
(10:58):
that reduced the amount ofstress I felt with the amount of
stuff we had in the room.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
but working with someone who maybe didn't have
some of those structures wouldcause some, some angst, and you
know, not just for me but foranyone really for sure it
reminds me a lot of when we weredoing the reading around
clutter, uh, in preparation forthe book, and we found all of
(11:25):
that research about how, as youage, especially for women
clutter becomes more and morestressful for you in your life.
I found that absolutelyfascinating and I recognize that
it's absolutely true for mebecause I was one of those
teenagers that, like you know,you couldn't see the floor of my
bedroom.
That was me when I was a kidand it didn't bother me.
(11:48):
It bothered my mum, but itdidn't bother me.
But now, yeah, that pile on mydesk has just that pile has the
potential to bother me now.
So I can absolutely identifymyself within that research that
we were finding out about whilewe were writing the book.
So I think, being mindful ofthat impact especially when we
(12:08):
have you know, most schools arefull of women if we're adding on
to that visual stress forpeople and overwhelm, yeah,
we're not helping the culture inour school, are we?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Right, let's talk about a few ways where we can, a
few tips where we can maybesuggest some ideas for
sustaining and maintainingdecluttered space, and this
might even help even if youhaven't started decluttering yet
.
But you know some ideas for,okay, I've cleaned this out,
(12:43):
feels good.
Now how do I keep it this way?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes, absolutely.
You know, something that hasworked for me over the years is
you know, if you keep moving youhave to get rid of stuff.
But that's quite an extremething to do just to maintain a
decluttered space.
So what are some more feasibleoptions that we have?
I think the first one iscreating a schedule or a routine
(13:08):
.
So at the end of the week or atthe end of the month or the end
of the semester, whatever itmay be, have that habit of I'm
going to do, you know, a day oran hour or a couple of minutes
of doing some decluttering andgetting rid of some stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, I think that that actual putting the task in
your calendar is helpful becauseyou know once we, when we see
it in there, we're more likelyto do it.
And one of the things that Ilearned from um LaVonna, who was
a guest in our first season, um, one of the things that she
often talks about is, like don'treschedule something more than
(13:48):
once.
So if it's something that youhave, so if you've got like 30
minutes blocked out, you knowThursday after school and you're
like, ooh, this thing came up,I need to change that to
tomorrow or next Thursday.
That's the only time you shouldchange it.
So, because we know whathappens then is that we keep
(14:09):
pushing it off and then we neverdo it.
And so we want to make sure that, if it comes up that it has to
be changed, and it needs to beone of those things where it's
like okay, something has reallycome up, not just like, oh, I
don't feel like doing this.
Yes, like let's try to get pastthat, right, because when we
keep doing that, we, just we, wewill never do it, and then it's
(14:31):
just feels we just feel worse,and then it's just feels, we
just feel worse.
Another thing that might bereally helpful is if you have a
co-teacher or accountabilitypartner or teacher down the hall
whoever doesn't matter who itis check in with each other, so
you can have someone to bringyou, bring into this process
with you, and maybe they're noteven in this in the same process
(15:04):
with you, maybe they could careless about having a clear space
.
But as long as you have someoneto talk about it with or, you
know, share the importance ofwhy you're doing this, it makes
you feel more accountable andalso, just, we're social people,
right?
So it's important for us toshare the things that we're
doing with the people that arein our lives.
So if it's important to you,you should share that and bring
(15:26):
someone in with you.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Just thinking about the scheduling thing as well, I
was reminded of.
Have you heard of that fiveminute rule for procrastinators?
Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 3 (15:36):
It sounds familiar, but I don't recall.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
The five minute rule is if you're rescheduling
something, you're putting it off, you don't want to do it
repeatedly, reallyprocrastinating on it.
If you tell yourself I'm justgoing to do it for five minutes
and then, once you get to theend of that, five minutes,
minutes, a lot of the timeyou're in it now and you keep
going.
But if you, if it's so horribleand you're really miserable,
you can stop and at least youfeel like you've, you've given
it a try and I have found thatreally, really helpful.
(16:07):
Um, when I've been taking ontasks that I don't particularly
want to do at that moment, justsay, okay, five minute timer,
let's go.
And it really does.
It really does help to, um, toget you over that hurdle of I
don't want to do it, I don'twant to do this, I don't want to
do it right now.
So that's, that's a good one aswell.
If you do hit that calendarreminder and you think, oh, I
(16:29):
can't imagine anything worseright now, just give it five
minutes.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, that feels so non-threatening yeah right you
can do anything for five minutes, it's fine yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Something else I was reading and I found interesting
is just keeping some littlespaces available in your
classroom office, whatever, andit doesn't have to be like a
giant box or anything, but whereyou have like oh, this is the
little box where I put thingsthat I'm going to give to other
teachers or put in the resourceroom.
This is the box where I donatethings.
(17:04):
So I need to remove this fromthe school at the end of the
week.
So having those kind of littledeposit areas that are easily
accessible, which I think is sogreat, like a lot of people at
home will have, like this is mygoodwill bag and I'm going to
take it to the store to drop offfor donation when it's full.
I think that's really helpful,too, to to just maintain your
(17:25):
space.
Cause even when you think aboutlike I've been thinking about,
you know, like getting rid of alot of the clothes in my closet
and I don't even have that manyclothes, but but I'm just going
through them like, oh, I haven'treally worn this, I'm just
gonna toss it in this pile rightnow, which you know, is now a
bag, but it just makes it easyfor me to then, in the moment be
like do am I gonna wear this?
(17:47):
Or I don't like the way thisfits anymore, or something, I'm
gonna put it in this bag.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's just so easy yeah, I've my last few schools.
They've done like once a yearor twice a year.
Though what do you do?
You call them skip bins, or isthat just an Australian thing?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Australian, the giant , big, massive, like industrial
size bins like a dumpster yeah,like a dumpster, of course.
yeah, that's better.
Um, so my last couple ofschools like once a year they'll
have a big dumpster and they'llsay like if you've got anything
to clear out, the dumpster isgoing to be there on these dates
.
But I feel like quite often youcan get into this mode of like
(18:27):
oh, I've only got two days, whatam I going to put in the
dumpster?
So I almost get like apre-dumpster box and then I'm
like preparing what if the nexttime a dumpster shows up, this
is what I'm going to put onthere.
So that's quite helpful too,and you can have a last check
through and make sure youhaven't unwisely put anything in
(18:48):
there before you get rid of it.
But it's helpful to kind ofkeep that in mind.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, no, that's a good idea, something that I
think might be a little.
This tip I think might be alittle harder for maybe some
people, I don't know, but we'vetalked about purposeful
purchasing before in workshopsand webinars and somewhere
within the book and and I dothis often, but it's, you know,
(19:15):
it's it becomes a process ofslowing down what you're doing
and a lot of times we're kind ofjust in a rush, we run into
somewhere, we get what we needand we leave.
But if we spend a little timewhen we're, let's say, you need
to get some new work clothes ornew supplies for school or
whatever, or work, um, beforeyou actually put the things in
your basket or your cart, reallythinking about like, okay, I'm
(19:40):
here to get this, so you go toget it, and you're like you're
you're actually evaluatingbefore you put it in your basket
or your bin.
Some people do that at thecheckout right, where you put
all the stuff in your in yourcart, and then, when you get
there, you're like, I'm gonnaput that to the side, don't need
that, I still have some of that.
So I've seen people do that.
(20:00):
I've done that before, but thatjust shows how you're being
thoughtful about what you'rebringing home, because whatever
you're bringing home is going totake up space, or whatever
you're bringing back to work isgonna take up space and you have
to make sure you have room forit.
So, with that, if you'rebringing something new in, think
(20:21):
about removing something beforeyou put something new there or
even checking what supplies youdo have before putting in the
next order, right?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So unfortunately, that does happen sometimes when
we think, oh, we need some morecraft paper or we need some more
dice or some more base 10blocks, and then actually
there's another cupboard, youknow in the school somewhere
else that has plenty of it thatwe could have made use of.
So I think that's really,really important to make those
(20:55):
careful uh evaluations before wepurchase and restock things.
It reminds me as well when wewere talking to dan tricarico
about um, about subtracting,thank you, and he was talking
about the get rid of 10 things aday.
Do you remember thatconversation?
(21:16):
He was saying, like if you gotrid of 10 things out of your
house every day, by the end ofthe week that's 70 things.
It reminds me of that, thatbeing thoughtful and removing
something when you get somethingnew and all of those good ideas
.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, yeah, and it seems for me the 10 things a day
would sound a little scary.
Okay, but depends, because Idon't have a lot of things in my
house either.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Well, yeah, I mean, if you did it for long enough,
you'd have nothing left right,yeah, right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But if I'm like, okay , I'm going to get a new this,
so I'm going to get rid of thisthing to replace it, so I feel
like for me, that feels a littlemore comfortable, Um, and that
might be more comfortable forsome people too.
It's like, so I'm not, you'rereplacing the thing that you're
you're bringing in withsomething new and you're, you
know, subtracting one thing,which I think is a fair enough
(22:10):
thing to do as well.
I think one of the just kind ofthinking about maybe this as a
last tip before I pare downpointers is and this goes back
to like bringing people in whenwe're going through this kind of
process is to stay inspiredwhile we're trying to stay
decluttered, because it can feellike, oh man, I really let this
(22:34):
get away from me, and now whyshould I do it again?
Because it's just going to getaway from me again.
But it's really like.
This is when I feel like socialmedia can be work to our
advantage, because you can goonto some like minimalist
Instagram reels or, you know,find some good articles that
will keep you inspired, toremind you why it is important
(22:56):
to actually have a space thathas not so much stuff in it,
cause it really does benefit ourmental health, our physical
health, and it's noticeable whenyou like you do feel physically
better when you're like wow, Ijust cleaned out a bunch of
stuff that just has been takingup all this space for so long
and now I feel really goodabsolutely, and you know,
(23:20):
depending on your personalitytype, what you, what you enjoy
doing.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
You know if you, if you love, like challenging
yourself or reaching a goal,that could be a way to keep
yourself inspired as well.
I know you've got your um30-day decluttering challenge,
don't you tell me?
Speaker 3 (23:38):
yes, yeah, so that was something that I set up for
this group of teachers in um LA.
They were like having thesesame questions, like how do we
start the process, how do wekeep it going.
So I'm like you know what?
Here's the 30-dayutteringchallenge and it sounds like,
ooh, that's something every day,but they're like very
manageable things.
So it'll.
(23:58):
The challenge will be attachedin the show notes so people can
download that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, Cause I think you know, as someone who likes
to count how many books I readon Goodreads and do things like
that I think some, you know,like a 30 day challenge would be
appealing to me to kind of, youknow, push me over that edge
and get a little bit moremotivated.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
For sure.
So this has been a really goodconversation.
Again, I always love chattingwith you about this.
Yeah, absolutely, but do youhave a pare down pointer for our
listeners for today?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So pare down, pointer .
I think one of the obstaclesthat I have, especially at home,
with decluttering is I'm oftenyou know it's lovely Students
buy you lots of gifts at the endof the year or, you know,
Christmas or teacherappreciation, things like that,
but it's not necessarily thingsthat you would have chosen for
(24:49):
yourself.
So I have a whole selection ofperfumed soaps and candles and
lotions and all sorts of thingsthat I don't want to give away
because I feel like I don't wantto throw them like they were
gifts from my students, you know, I would feel really awful just
to throw them away.
So one thing that I wouldreally like to start doing is
(25:12):
when we have like, our school isvery action-oriented and we are
constantly having drives forpeople less fortunate than
ourselves and they ask forthings like dry goods and
toiletries and things like that.
So I really want to get intothe habit of starting to donate
some of those gifts that arevery thoughtful and kind and
(25:32):
appreciated but are notnecessarily something or just
too numerous for me to usemyself, you know.
So I think that's a good habitfor me to start getting into is
taking those not necessarilywanted gifts and finding an
authentic purpose for them.
What about you?
What's a good pair down pointerfor you?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Oh, that is really.
That's a good one and that'ssuper tricky.
And I'm going to kind of cheathere and play my pair down
pointer off of yours based onsomething that we said.
So, when you were talkingearlier about sharing a space
(26:13):
and being aware of how yourpiles might affect someone else,
right, because you're sharingthat space so you just spoke
about being the receiver of agift and you know they pile up
but also when we're giving gifts, being very thoughtful about
(26:34):
who we're getting something forand why we're getting it.
Because you know we feelcompelled you know, teacher
appreciation, valentine's Day,all of those things to gift
something to someone withoutthinking of what they might do
with it.
With it, right, so I alwayslike gifting a consumable, like
here's a coffee card or a pen,little thing, right, something,
(26:57):
yes, that's usable, that iseaten, drink, drank and drunk
whatever.
Yes, all of those yep, yes, um,and like that makes a
difference.
When you really know someonetoo, right, so you can get the
appropriate gift.
Or if you know that they'relooking for something
specifically, and I think thatwould help reduce the receiver.
(27:20):
On the other side, some of thatstress like oh, I love this gift
, thank you so much.
I appreciate it, but I don'tknow what to do with it because
this is not something I use allthe time.
So I think that it comes tolike that thoughtful purchasing
in general, right?
So not just when we're buyingthings for ourselves, but also
when we're buying things forothers.
(27:41):
So I'm glad that you broughtthat point up, because that's a
real conundrum right here.
It's like do I need anothercoffee mug?
I don't't know, I love coffeeor like tea or whatever, and you
can have mugs at school andmugs at home and all of those
things.
That's fine, but you know thereare limits to the cupboard
space as well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So this is true.
This is true, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
So I think that that's kind of like a two-four
um related pare down pointer.
But now, like we had mentionedearlier that we were going to
share the thing that we weregoing to do to help create that
maintenance in our spaces,because we both have things that
we do that you know kind ofhinder us from staying
(28:24):
decluttered.
So what's your next step goingto be to manage your end of day
pile?
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think I'm going to merge two.
Tammy, with your assistants,You're involved in this.
Sorry about that.
So I think what I'm going to do, like I said before, I end up
getting this buildup ofmaterials because I just want to
go home for the weekend andthen, when I get back into my
curriculum days, there it iswaiting for me.
(28:53):
So I think what I might do isthe start of my curriculum days.
The very first thing I do isjust take a couple of minutes to
do some tidying of that space.
I think that's the schedulingpart.
But then I think I'll also hackinto that accountability buddy
situation and maybe startsending you a few little pics of
my office space so you can helpme out with that one, Tammy yes
(29:17):
for sure, happy to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Um, I'm gonna build in pictures as well.
So instead of me bringing mypost-its with me and then having
this weird assortment ofpost-its everywhere, I will take
a photo when I go to travel.
I'll just take a picture of thepost-its that I have on my desk
and bring that with me, so thenI don't have you know stuff and
(29:40):
then I'm like, oh, can't evenremember where those post-its
went.
Was it that important and thatkind of thing.
So I think the picture is anice way to reduce the amount of
, well, the use of post-its I'musing, because you know it can
be a lot, but also then a littlebit of streamlining, because
then I don't have files ofpost-its in multiple places.
(30:03):
Thank you so much for thisconversation, christine.
I think we talked a lot longerthan I thought we were going to
talk about this topic, but Ithink it's a really important
one because I know it's aquestion that comes up very
often from people and so youknow, any tips that we can give
people I think hopefully will behelpful.
So thanks so much for thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thank you.
Some good reminders for me aswell.
Today's episode was brought toyou by Plan Z Professional
Learning Servicesforward-thinking educator
support.
Find out more atplanzplservicescom.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the MinimalistEducator Podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at PlanZPLSon Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
(31:20):
Gaia Moretti.
Thank you.
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