Conversations: How Do You Plan and Stay Organized?

Counselors who plan and stay organized found the key to being a counselor who looks and feels confident. I always love hearing new tips and tricks from other counselors. Check out these gems from The Sunny Sunshine Student Support Store, Little Miss Counselor, and Mrs Bell The Crafty Counselor.

How do you plan and stay organized as a school counselor?

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I love to organize!! By best tip for being organized for the NEXT school year is to start early. I go into work over the summer and make photocopies of all my anticipated class lessons and group materials for the school year. Then I organize these copies by grade level, topic and lesson order. I also laminate manila file folders labeled Monday-Friday and place in a file organizer. This allows for me to quickly and easily plan for 1 week of lessons at a time. To always stay ahead of things, after at the end of each day, I put the copies I will need for the next week for that day in the file folder. This may sound complex, but in the end it saves so much time and I am always prepared. – The Sunny Sunshine Student Support Store.

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I have two bulletin boards that I update monthly; one features my school’s monthly character trait and the other one displays different student initiatives such as Attendance month, Red Ribbon Week, etc. During the summer I plan in advance what character traits and student initiatives we will celebrate. I plan what the bulletin boards will say, pick out matching trim, letters, and decorations. Then I place each planned bulletin board into a Ziplock bag then stuff it inside a transparency sleeve in a binder. It saves me so much time and I don’t have to put much effort all year-long into planning my bulletin boards! Little Miss Counselor

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I plan all my guidance lessons in advance, it saves me so much time during the year. I look at the district’s character trait of the month and plan a lesson that relates to each trait. I plan one lesson for grades K-2 and one for grades 3-5. I print out the lesson resources and place the materials in a folder which I label by grade and month. When it comes time to teach, all I have left to do is make the necessary amount of copies. I love having such a big task done before the year starts. It allows me more time to focus on small groups and the last minute issues that pop-up during the day. – Mrs Bell The Crafty Counselor