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Channel the Trapper Keeper

27 August 2014

Allison read Simple Solutions for Back-to-School Student Organization (Sorry, No Trapper Keeper) in The New York Times by Jessica Lahey and decided to renew her own organization efforts in honor of all the kids going back to school.

Tags: allison read, balance, productivity, time management and prioritization

There are lots of things I enjoy about Facebook, but without a doubt, back-to-school pictures are among my favorite posts. It’s so wonderful to celebrate with my friends and their kids as another year gets underway. This picture of my brother, George III, and me when he was starting kindergarten and I was beginning second grade is still one of my very favorites.

My mama was at her most generous when it came to school supplies and back-to-school clothes. She was and is always so generous about getting us what we need and want, but she was especially easy to persuade as we got ready for school. Long before she was a consultant and coach, she was a high school teacher and then college professor. Her mother was a teacher, too. We honor the rituals of back-to-school with reverence in my family whether we’re actually in school or not. The end of August / early September is always a good time to have a new start and set goals. In fact, I think most of my family resonates with the fresh start of the school year more than we do January every year.

Because of Mama’s love of school and generosity, it was not at all hard to convince her we needed to have Trapper Keepers as soon as we learned about them in the late 70s. (Check out this story for a great history lesson about this iconic school supply.)

Earlier this month, I got a great giggle when Rachel sent me Jessica Lahey’s Simple Solutions for Back-to-School Student Organization (Sorry, No Trapper Keeper). It seems the Trapper Keeper has great memories for The New York Times writer, too. However, I appreciated the point of her article—that fancy school supplies aren’t really what’s needed to help kids get organized. In fact, the simpler your organizational solutions, the better.

This article is full of great advice for kids and grown-ups about how to make organization easy. Lahey tapped the expertise of Ana Homayoun, a student organization expert, who recommends that the two best things kids can do is have a good, “…planbook. Kids need one place to record all their assignments, deadlines, appointments and checklists,” as well as small basic binders for each subject with these tabs:

• Notes
• Homework
• Handouts
• Tests/Quizzes
• Paper

After you’ve got this set up, it’s all about working the system—cleaning out the binder periodically and checking the planbook with your child regularly. I can certainly see how a Trapper Keeper for each subject would be a bit much, but I think Lahey's real point is that so many school supplies and organization systems have gotten so elaborate that it's all more than kids can successfully manage.

All of this got me to thinking about my own organizational efforts. I do a pretty good job adhering to my system except when I don’t. (Know what I mean?) My system is generally a version of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. If you’re curious, you can check out this post that explains what I like about Allen’s advice. It's another version of today’s blog post—a renewed commitment to work the system that I know works for me when it comes to managing email, mail, and all of my daily tasks.

So as kids go back to school, I’ll be trying to get back to the basics of my system and channel the power of my childhood Trapper Keeper. I suppose my iPhone is my fancy Trapper Keeper these days. As Lahey said at the end of her article, “I don’t know that my Trapper Keeper helped me establish good habits, but I did love carrying it around in junior high school. Clutched close to my chest, that binder held more than my neatly completed homework and notes. It held all my hopes that this year would be wicked cool and totally awesome.” While I understand that not every binder in a kid’s system should be a Trapper Keeper, I hope that we can all have at least one part of our organizational system that makes us smile and inspires us to work the system as much as my original Tapper Keeper used to help me have hope for the year ahead. I had a lot of Trapper Keepers over the years, but this one with hot air balloons was a special favorite.

 

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