Okay, so by now some of you may think I’m a little Type A/OCD about organization and I promise you, I’m really not. Ask my husband. Or my boss. All this just sort of snuck up on me. Everyone has exactly the same amount of time allotted to them. In that, we all have a level playing field. The reason I’ve become this way is because there is so much I want to do…if I’m not organized in the way I go about it, things start slipping.
For instance, I love to cook, I need to run and workout, I love flowers and gardening, I teach at both a community college (which I love), an after school care program, (ditto), write books, and am attending school myself. I also have a husband of 26 years, two grown children, two elderly parents, one grand girl, four cats and a partridge in a pear tree. (I’m just kidding about the partridge).
All of these things are blessings and necessary for my life. All take time, care and attention. Being organized is the only way I can manage to give and do all the things.
I explain all that because I’m afraid that you all might throw me into the realm of bat shit crazy when I tell you that one of the ways I organize my life is with the bag method. Yes. Bags. Not folders or planners, but bags…
Many of my activities call for various and sundry notebooks and items. Instead of having just one bag for everything that has to be packed and unpacked, I have several different bags that only have stuff for that activity. The striped bag goes with me to my after school teaching gig and is usually packed with everything I’m going to need for that week. Library books, lesson plan, visuals, worksheets, etc.
The NaNoWriMo bag is the one I take with me to conferences and workshops. The laptop bag is the one I take to go write with my friends on Wednesdays. It has a pouch for copy edits, etc. The Great Gatsby Bag is used for studying with friends and the black RT bag is used only for my teaching gig at Portland Community College. I usually pack whatever bag I’m going to need up in the morning and put it in my car so I won’t forget it. I know at a glance which bag it is and what it contains… for my community college gig, I put all the books I need for that night’s class into it, as well as my flash drive and lesson plans. 
It’s not crazy, it’s practical. Right?
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