Being an organized teacher is not just a “someday dream.” With these teacher organization tips, you can become the classroom queen you’ve always wanted to be!

“I literally just had it!” you mutter angrily under your breath. The key to the iPad cart – where is it?

As your student stands impatiently in front of you, waiting to hand out the class iPads, you rifle through the various stacks of paper on your desk, frantically moving piles and opening drawers.

“Aha!” you shout victoriously as you find the key in your sweater pocket.

The student takes the key, giving you a skeptical glance, and goes on about her business. Not exactly the competent facade you hoped to portray.

Fear not! This doesn’t have to be your reality!

Teachers, just like all people, can fall prey to poor organizational habits.

Luckily, that’s all organization is – a habit.

Adopting the right habits and incorporating systems into your life can help to turn you into the most organized teacher in your building!

How Does Disorganization Happen?

According to some sources, teachers make up to fifteen hundred decisions in a single day.

We also move lots of paperwork, and manage multiple writing implements, remote controls, pieces of technology, and digital communication.

It’s no wonder that things begin to pile up.

Time Management for Teachers

Whether you’re a millionaire, a pauper, or somewhere in between, one thing we all get the exact same amount of is TIME.

Each of us wakes up with twenty-four hours in our day.

The first step to being organized, and some might say, remaining sane, is to ruthlessly protect your time.

Schedule your day, noting everything you want it to include.

Obviously, you’ll be at work from eight until five or so. Hoping to work out? Don’t leave it to chance – schedule it! Coffee with a friend? Schedule it! Getting the oil changed? Schedule it!

You only get one life – and what is life? TIME.

It’s minutes that add up to hours that add up to days, weeks, months, and so on. Take advantage of the time that you’re given each day.

Just because you’re scheduling things doesn’t mean you can’t be spontaneous, but knowing that you’re living mostly by your schedule will give your productivity a big boost!

Write It Down, Friend!

Don’t rely on memory to carry you through to your goals.

Use to-do lists, your phone, or your computer to make note of what you must remember.

Refer to those lists often, eliminating and adding to them.

This may happen to you too – I’ll think of an amazing new idea or something fun to share with my class and then something happens and that idea flies out the window.

There are many new digital tools that can help with organization. Airtable, Evernote, Dropbox , Google, and Pocket offer online storage from which one can easily retrieve articles, information, blogs, etc., for use.

Using these strategies can help you to work smarter, not harder.

Organizing All the Things

One of my most important teacher organization tips is this: Give everything a home.

This is paramount regardless of what is being organized – whether it’s a home office, a child’s bedroom, or a fifth grade classroom.

Your desk should be considered sacred ground, not an area to stack things. Resist the urge to pile…

Your desk should contain your laptop, writing implements, and maybe a couple of bins to hold a paper grade book and planner (if you’ve not gone digital yet).

Make it a goal to leave each day with a clean desk. That way when you return to school, you’ll be greeted with the appearance of organization.

Another area that can become quite messy is student desks.

Scheduling five minutes daily for student desk organization will pay off handsomely in the long run.

Also, insist that your students limit their possessions at school. Sure, they can have a cute pencil pouch, etc., but multiple water bottles and extraneous folders are a distraction.

Clip Your Class Sets Together

If you’re a plan-ahead copy maker like me, you’ll want to organize those class sets as soon as you get back to your classroom.

Separate your copies into sets, clip them together, and put them face up in the order you’ll use them.

This will make your day-to-day instruction so much easier and quicker to implement.

To clip my sets together, I use medium binder clips for single-page class sets and large binder clips for class set packets. Also, I use these large rubber bands to hold multiple clipped class sets together.

Embrace the Bin

Bins and trays are a crucial part of keeping your classroom organized.

Having a bin for each day of the week can be helpful in staying organized for daily instruction.

Some teachers also find it useful to have a bin for each content area (reading, writing, social studies, science, etc.) to contain future lesson ideas and materials.

Trays should be used for students to turn in assignments.

If you have multiple classes, obviously you’ll need more than one bin.

In addition, you might want a turn-in bin for each subject.

Labeling is essential. Opening every cupboard door in search of extra notebook paper is a colossal waste of time.

Remember, perfect is the enemy of done.

Your labels do not have to be Pinterest-ready – they just need to be functional.

If you want to see an example of the bins and trays that I use, I linked them below:

Lesson Planning

An unwritten rule to follow is to have your lesson plans for the next week completed prior to leaving your classroom on Friday afternoon.

Having said that, any teacher worth her salt knows that plans change.

There’s an unexpected assembly, fire drill, or assessment.

Or maybe the technology doesn’t work or a lesson goes longer than expected.

A good teacher knows how to change direction on a dime.

Everyone is different, but my own philosophy is to have an outline rather than a script.

An outline, including the objective, time allotment, and supplies, should provide you with enough information with which to move forward.

Lesson planning may take a bit more time at the beginning of the year, but should be easily accomplished within a two-hour time frame.

Obviously, some of this depends on how many lessons you’re planning, how many subjects you teach, etc., but it’s a general guideline.

Grading

Like lesson plans, grades do not have to take over your life.

First of all, you DO NOT have to grade everything. If I graded every single page my students completed, I would drive myself crazy.

If it’s an assignment that students completed with partners or you did as an entire class, stamp them and send them home.

Your administrator will likely dictate grading expectations, but generally you want to shoot for one to two grades per subject, per week.

No matter how many grades you record in your grade management system, keep in mind that students need and deserve timely feedback.

The sooner you get your papers graded and returned, the happier everyone will be.

Don’t get eaten by the procrastination monster – just do it.

Final Note

I encourage you to look at the big picture.

You WANT to be an effective teacher who helps students to meet their goals.

You WANT your pupils to grow academically, socially, and emotionally while in your classroom.

Some aspects of teaching can be distilled down to numbers, but not all.

Students are SO MUCH MORE than test scores – keep that in mind.

More than books and papers, students need YOU.

So, do your job with the passion and dedication for which you’re known – then go home.

Take a walk, meditate, or have some ice cream.

Taking care of yourself is perhaps the best gift you can offer your students this year!

For more information on leaving it all at school and going home on time, visit this blog post: Go Home On Time – How to Leave it All at School

* Please note that Thrive in Grade Five (Jenifer Bazzit) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. *