I’m pretty sure I am trying to update my speech cabinets and closets every year. Now that I’ve been doing this for 15 plus years, I have some better ideas for how to organize my beautiful metal 2 door cabinets. That never seem to close. I’m always opening the one door and turning the handle in-and then the other door I have to kind of hit with hip to get it to close and then quick turn the handle so it stays closed.
Here are a few ways that I am organizing myself this year:
Card Decks:
Who was it that tried putting card decks into a hanging shoe organizer-only to come back to their room and find that it had fallen down? That’s the kind of thing that happens to me frequently. I organize my card decks based on category. So I have containers for articulation, syntax, social thinking and language. Because I am an organization freak at home-I’m usually changing my home system-and then end up bringing the old items to work. I had purchased these wooden organizers to organize my son’s onesies when he was a baby. Now that he is entering *sigh* Kindergarten, his shirts are bigger and I didn’t have a place to put the organizers at home. But they work awesome for organizing my card decks. Plus they have magnets on the sides so you can connect them together. Sweet!
Resources/Handouts:
I took an awesome class from Sarah Peterson through BER Seminars. She is an amazing therapist and has fantastic ideas for organization. Some of the binders that I created were based on her ideas from class-and then I modified and added new binders. Last year, I bit the bullet and purchased matching binders. I think it makes a big difference in making the shelf look organized and professional. I find that I am more likely to pull out a binder than pull information from a filing cabinet. I tried to separate each binder into “treatment” categories to make it more efficient for myself. For example, I broke up my feeding binder into:
- Development of Feeding
- Dysphagia handouts
- Chewing
- Spoon Feeding
- Cup drinking
- Straw drinking
- Oral hypo/hypersensitivity
- Jaw
- Tongue
- Lips
- Mealtime Communication
- Problem solving
As I find information, I can put it into my binders (with the appropriate citations) and pull them out to use as reference for me OR to give to my parents as handouts. As I look at this, I realize that I now I want to create new-more colorful binder labels and also add matching boxes (the white ones from Ikea) to the top and middle shelf. I just can’t stop myself.
Kids Books/Resources
I used these when I needed to store some of my kids books on my desk. I sorted the books by category-example Emotion books, or Articulation books and then wrote each book that would be in the magazine file. I printed that off and placed on the back of the magazine file using contact paper. I can quickly look at the shelf and find the books that I need.
CD Books and Resources
I’ve started buying the CD of the book because it is so much easier to print off worksheets for Home programming. I usually print off a copy of the book and place it in a binder too. Otherwise, I sometimes forget that I have the CD. One of the problems with trying to store binders AND books is that my regular books kept getting crushed by the binders. This year I splurged and picked up these metal open front magazine holders. Now my books-espeically the bound ones stay up.
Here’s my next step. I’m combining some of my books. For instance. I am taking WH question resources from each CD that I have and placing them in a binder. Then I will tab it out-example who, what, where, when, why, how and mixed questions. I’m going to have binders for categorization, Multiple Meaning Words, Figurative language, Directions etc.
That’s how I organized my cabinets and shelves for this year. How about you? Are you more of a Binder-loving Speech Language Pathologist, A File-loving Speech Language Pathologist or another breed? Let me know below. If you thought I had some good suggestions, I’d really appreciate if you would help spread the word by sharing my page on Pinterest or Facebook. You can click any of the photos above to link to Pinterest.
This is great! Taking notes on any organization tips/ideas I can find. I am starting my cf year and I am feeling completely overwhelmed already. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks Kelly! Good luck in your CF year!
I love all of your organization ideas! I have a lot of binders, all matching. If I could, I would have tons and tons of binders, but I don’t have the space for them. I think I am going to purchase some magazine files though. I live the idea of putting what is in them on the back!
Love matching binders! Space definitely can be an issue though.
Your ideas are awesome! I especially like the idea of the metal magazine holders to house your books in — so many of mine are curled and misshapen from the very reason you described! How do you make the labels for the spines of your binders? Thanks for all of the great tips!
Thank you so much! I use the Avery Templates in Word and wrote the fonts using the word art tab. I may have a freebie of spine labels when I post more about my binders next week-be sure to check back.
Please. Please..PLEASE share more on your binders!! That looks like such a better way to organize but it’s hard to get a good idea from this snippet!! I’m 20 years into this business and still can’t decide how to organize *or* do data!!! Sigh….isn’t it nice to have ongoing goals for one’s career???? Thanks for everything!
SLPSally-Thank you so much! I am with you on data too-I seem to change my system every few years. Check back next week for more on my binders.
Where did you get your magazine files, & how wide are they? I’m thinking of ordering the IKEA ones but they’re only 3.5″ thick. I plan to use them for my workbooks organized by goal focus, & possibly my children’s books based on thematic unit.
I got mine at Target last year. They are about 4 1/2 inches wide.