Organize Your Life:
Strategies for Educators
The Diane Spicer Memorial
Lecture Series Spring, 2011
Ali Zidel Meyers, MSW
This presentation is copyrighted by Ali Zidel Meyers (2011).
www.meyerslearningcenter.com
In an ideal world…
• How many of you work
with students who are
impeccably organized?
• Who has a student who
never loses
anything…EVER?
• Who here has never lost
a cell phone, keys, or an
important document?
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Reality…
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Welcome
• Why organizational skills
– The struggles are real, and so are the benefits.
– Learning and Life Skills
• Caveats:
– No silver bullets
– Process vs. content
– Help yourself: an a la carte presentation
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6 Questions
(There will be a quiz!)
Questions I will ask you to answer at the end (no
need to write these down):
1. Name a thought process involved in organizing.
2. What’s the best method for organizing?
3. What are the two cornerstones of organization?
4. Give an example of an organizational tool.
5. How do educators teach organizational
behavior?
6. What can be done to address organizational
challenges?
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Why it’s a big deal:
Organizational thinking
Why can organization be such a challenge?
• Cognitive skills required for organization—
before action even happens!
• Brain/thought processes involved in
organizing:
• Categorization
• Sequencing
• Prioritization
• Where and when does this happen in the
brain?
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Organization and the Brain
Source: American Health Assistance Foundation, http://www.ahaf.org/alzdis/about/AnatomyBrain.htm
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Why it’s a big deal:
Organizational thinking
• Developmental factors:
– what is age-appropriate (wide range)
– what takes years to develop
– what we do that we take for granted, as
adults
• Cultural context: VROOM!!!! accelerate
the developmental pace, warp-speed,
information, expectations
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What’s the best method?
How to organize your life…
• “The secret’s in the system.”
• The key to organization is not so
much in a magical type of system, but
in making and maintaining an
effective system for you.
• The best method, bottom line? Create
a system that works for you, and
USE IT.
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How to organize your life:
Organization Demystified
• Two cornerstones of organization:
1. Structure
2. Habit (regular actions)
• The best organizational system is the
one that is most effective for you.
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How to Organize
– How to Organize: Tools for Structure
and Habit-Building
– Organization and Student Challenges
– Plan of Attack: for getting started or for
breaking big difficulties into smaller
piece
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How we teach
organization to our students
– Role modeling: They watch what you do,
and they do as you do.
– Direct instruction: Show and teach new
skills directly.
– Limit-setting: Define/communicate
boundaries.
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How we teach
organization to students
Role Modeling
• The Ping-Pong Program:
– Play ping-pong for 12 hours and lose 1lb
– Examine and address ping-pong tactics in your life. (mail and
laundry—two of my favorites)—kids can observe and adopt
• Practice building effective structure and habits:
– Organize in baby steps regularly: use a key dish; tackle a junk
drawer, de-clutter a section of a closet or a cabinet each week
– Weekly weed-outs/daily tune-ups: dump out your purse, wallet,
briefcase and de-clutter. Make weeding-out a regular family ritual.
– Have a Purge Party or a De-clutter Contest.
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How we teach
organization to our students
Direct instruction: Ask, show, tell.
• Osmosis works in biology but not for teaching
organization skills!
• Kids who struggle with organization need new
behaviors spelled out directly (and reiterated) in
ways that match their learning styles.
• Asking questions helps guide your students to
realize, own, and internalize their learning.
• Start early and practice constantly.
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How we teach
organization to students, parents
Limit setting: Helping kids understand what’s
okay and what’s not…boundaries
• Publish your Priorities: Decide on priorities
and make them known (personal safety, school
work, personal space, communal space)
– CLEARLY define limits and maintain them as nonnegotiables.
• Do not give up; it will register (maybe not right
now, but later…)
– The boy who could not see the floor of his room
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Teaching organization through limit-setting:
•
•
•
Consider everything students may consider a
birthright…
• Cell phone time
• Computer access
• Video Gaming
Contextualize: these are privileges, not rights. Limits
should be placed around them. Teach students how
these can become time monsters…
A bliss list or “time tokens” can be used to reinforce the
notion of working hard, then enjoying free time.
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Why: organizational challenges
– Mental and behavioral processes required for
organization are complex.
• These processes take years to develop.
– Difficulties can stem from:
• Hardwiring (often associated with ADD, ADHD,
executive functioning, NVLD, ‘out-of-box’/creative
thinkers—think of innovative inventors)
• Genetics
• Ingrained habits that need transformation
• Limit-testing and seeking: changing/challenging limits
• Falling in: mental traps
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Beware of Mental Traps
•
•
The School Picture Makeover
Magic Wand Mentality
• A More realistic view:
The Five Stages of Change
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
Preparation
Action
Maintenance
(from Prochaska and DiClemente)
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What can we do? Problem-solving
Come back to basics:
– Consciously practice role modeling, direct
instruction, and limit-setting
– Work on incremental change through your
structure and habits (as well as your child’s)
– Problem-solving
• Involve students in problem-solving around
organization issues
• Collaborate with colleagues
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Your job is
to create the conditions…
Be a farmer
…not a fly
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Reminders for trouble-shooting
• Ask yourself: have I been a farmer or a fly?
…Work to create solutions that really fit. Your
answers may not be the right ones for this
particular student.
• Feeling off track? Return to problem-solving.
– Collaborative problem-solving with the student
provides a roadmap
• Habit modification: Any kind of behavioral
change takes time, effort, and lots of
practice.
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7 Questions
(Time for a quiz!)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Name a thought process involved in organizing.
What’s the best method for organizing?
What are the two cornerstones of organization?
Give an example of an organizational tool.
How do parents teach organizational behavior?
Why do organizational difficulties arise?
What can be done to address organizational
challenges?
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Final Words
• Change takes time. Have faith in yourself and
your students.
• You may not get thank-you notes, but your
efforts will bear fruit in their own time…open
yourself up to that.
• The real moment of success is not the
moment apparent to the crowd.
- George Bernard Shaw
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Questions?
Organize Your Life:
Strategies for Educators
Diane Spicer Memorial
Lecture Series
Spring, 2011
Ali Zidel Meyers, MSW
This presentation is copyrighted by Ali Zidel Meyers (2011).
www.meyerslearningcenter.com