Marie Kondo Tidying Up for Teachers
Got a messy art room? It might be time to Marie Kondo your space! If you’re unaware, Marie is a Japanese organizing consultant who has written several books including, “Sparks Joy” and “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”
And I have to say, I think the art teacher world could use a healthy dose of her. I prefer my art room to be organized. Now before you line up tomatoes to throw at me, hear me out.
It All Begins With Self-Awareness
Art rooms are notoriously filled with clutter. Piles on top of piles of boxes with an assortment of things lurking inside.
Cabinets filled with several bottles of the same half-used ceramic glazes.
Bins of pretty silk ribbons plucked from birthday and holiday presents in bags tucked away on shelves.
Trays of spent watercolor paints stacked sky high.
Fabric scraps from the school nurse’s one month foray into learning how to sew.
And so on. It’s a hoarders dream.
Most of that was introduced into the art room with good intentions. Some of it was even gifted. And you accepted it with a smile and a quick, “I’ll find some way to use that, thanks!”
Then you shoved it into the cabinet with everything else and promptly forgot about it.
I know. I know. I’ve done it myself.
Last year I revamped my art room. And in the process, I tidied up Marie Kondo style. When the end of the school year came, so, too, did kids dropping off “gifts” from their teachers. Last year, I reluctantly accepted foam sheets filled with shapes and alphabet letters along with small plastic storage containers.
In and of themselves, those things may be of use. But the totality of an art room jam-packed with so much stuff is that it feels suffocating and overwhelming for those students who suffer from anxiety. And it does no good to have lots of things with no plan on how to use them.
5 Tips for Tidying Up the Marie Kondo Way
Marie Kondo has a whole KonMari Method that she uses to tidy up that’s geared towards home spaces. And I’ll be honest, it’s near exact to how I’ve always approached cleaning up my own space (which I got from my mother!) I’ve adapted her approach for classroom teachers. Here’s the gist of it.
1. Commit Yourself to Tidying Up
Before I leave for the day, I do the “The 10 Minutes Tidy up.” I wipe down all the tables, put anything back that’s been left out, and write myself a short list of what the next day will look like. I place all dried projects in class folders, too. This way, I leave feeling like I’m leaving my work at school. Nor do I feel like I’ll be walking into the aftermath of a hurricane the next day.
2. Imagine Your Ideal Teacher Lifestyle:
Look around your art room. What would you rather the space look like? If you have a clutter corner, imagine having room for those items in cabinets and bookshelves. If you have too many storage spaces, envision them and their contents gone. Perhaps your teacher desk is always sky high with damp art projects.
Or the paint cabinet that doesn’t close because you or your students keep opening new bottles and never finish the old ones that are piling up. Or maybe you’re trying to make space for some flexible seating, but you’re hampered by too many small items taking up valuable floor space.
Step back and look at your space and listen to what it wants to be. I did this some years back when I had one entire wall of cabinets filled to the brim, lots of it just “stuff” leftover from the last teacher. I made a plan to junk or use up those things. And after several years, I whittled my room down to just two cabinets.
Now? When kids drop off things I process donations quickly. I make a quick decision if I can use it and if not, who can I pass it on to, or how can I dispose of it.
3. Finish Discarding First
Tidying up doesn’t work if you haven’t taken the time to discard some stuff. There’s only so much more space you can eek out of your art room by merely shifting things around like Tetrus pieces.
The key to successful tidying up is to have less things that need to be straightened up. Also, your students can tidy up at the end of class easier when they’re isn’t an overwhelming amount of things in your art room. Less is more. I promise.
4. Tidy by Category, Not By Location
Take everything out. Yes, everything! Your art room is going to be a colossal nightmare. Embrace it. Appreciate the empty space created by moving all that stuff out. Envision it filled efficiently with enough room to add a few more things down the road. Then, combine like terms. Categorize all the art supplies in your room. Put all the paint together, felt together, adhesives together and so on.
I’m sure you’ll have many instances of, “Ohhh, is that where that went?!”
5. Ask Yourself, “Does this spark joy?”
Marie Kondo uses this phrase to help clients tidy up. In the case of teachers, it’s more like, “Is this useful and attractive in my art room?” Assess each item or group of items effectiveness in your room.
Is it a staple you use daily or weekly? Can you use it again? Start putting back the items that you answer “yes” to in places that are easy to reach and make the most sense. Like, paints should be near the sink. And bagged crayons, oil pastels, and colored pencils in easy-to-access bins for students.
If not, ask yourself if it’s something you can use up in an art project soon? If so, don’t store it. Begin immediately coming up with an art project for those supplies.
One such example are those foam alphabet letters a teacher gifted me. I came up with two ideas immediately: artist trading cards and a kindergarten alphabet soup project!
If you can’t think of immediate ways to use them items, discard them. I know this is tough for art teachers. We panic when we have less materials to work from. But I promise having more space in your room will bring you more joy and spark more creative ideas moving forward.
Marie Kondo Art Room Organization
And once you’ve tidied up your art room Marie Kondo style, it’s a whole lot easier to keep up with it. It might have taken me too many years to declutter my room from past art teacher’s clutter, but I feel like I can use my space more wisely. I can take a better needs assessment and make space for new priorities like that silkscreening unit I’d like to teach.
And if you’re a choice-based classroom teacher, you’ll have more room for students to help themselves to materials.
Have you tried the KonMari Method of revamping your art room? I’d love to hear what you junked and what made the cut. Leave a comment below!
Love your article, this is my life now. Moved to a new school packed my stuff and now I am decluttering my new to me art class. It has not had a deep cleaning for 10 years. Its my summer but I need that room cleaned before decorated. Its tiring but I see the benefit of it.
Awww, I’m sorry this is your summer! If I lived by you, I’d come and help. That’s awful. When I left my last job, I cleaned and cleared the room. It was PRISTINE. I wanted the next person taking over to receive it in a much better condition than I did. Hopefully something I’ve said here helps you out. <3
Do you know where your classroom art tables were purchased from? My PTO is hoping to purchase some new tables for my classroom. I would love to know which supplier yours came from.
Thank you,
Kathy
Hey Kathy, I honestly don’t know. They showed up on the first day back to work a few years ago. I had no idea they were even ordered. My guess was that the school had to money to spend or lose it, so they bought me tables. Sorry for the non-answer!
Last year was my first year teaching just art. I inherited a room that had literally had every subject taught in it at one point or another. It was like teachers that left would leave a cabinet of their stuff behind and then the next teacher would just avoid that cabinet and move on to the next. I found old VHS tapes, math supplies, history books, resource materials, you name it, I probably found it in my room. Plus all these boxes of the previous art teachers stuff that was being moved into that room. It was overwhelming and exhausting going through all of that stuff and I had to because there was no room for the art supplies. This summer I was relieved I didn’t have to do that and then I was given a whole bunch of really neat art supplies. It was great, but then I had to re go through my whole room just to organize enough to find room to put all of those new items away. I even went through all the watercolors to combine colors that were still good into one tub and combined similar color paints so that there were less containers. I am glad it is done now but man, I wish we got paid for the amount of time we spend as teachers past our allotted time.
Meghan, I hear you on that! I made an Insta post last year at the start of the school year begging teachers who KNEW they were going to retire to start cleaning their room immediately. Don’t wait until June when you have no energy and will just dump it all off on the next person. It’s not right!
My first day at my previous school was very much like what you’re saying. Only, the janitors were tasked with moving the art room to a completely different room across the building. Do you think they spent time boxing things neatly? NOPE. Everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – was throwing haphazardly into boxes and literally tossed into the room. There was stuff all over the place. It was a total nightmare. And to top it off, the teacher I was in for that year packed the entire closet with her stuff. She was out on maternity leave and thought she’d just store her personal paintings and such.
When she retuned, I kept her position and they stuck her in 5th grade because she was dual certified. Our first day back my second year there, she came down, took a few things, and left the rest of it for me. So…I put it on a cart and wheeled it to her room and left it. She wheeled it back to me when I didn’t notice and I? Wheeled it back. Nope, not cleaning up after you!
Wow, I can’t believe she tried to drop it back off on you. The teacher that had my room before me said she left it all in the class because most of it wasn’t’ hers and the stuff that had been she was hoping I might be able to use. I didn’t know who had the classroom before since I was new. i only found out when school started back up and had already gone through everything. She was supposed to box everything up like everyone else because everyone was getting moved around. She is a nice lady but it really bothered me.
The thing that bothered me the most was that I couldn’t use that stuff for a whole year because she locked it up in the closet. But once she returned and didn’t want to deal with it, she was pushing it off on me to deal with.
And yeah, this is what happens. I saw it every year for 20 years. My school loved to move people around. We had a couple years where way too many people got moved around to the janitors dismay!
But always the worst is when people retire and just leave everything like it’s the next person’s job to clean up after them. I counseled friends close to retirement to start giving the good stuff away, along with leaving some donations in the teacher’s lounge.
Great post! Where did you get your studio habits posters?
Thanks, Heidi! I made them myself. If you’d like a copy, you can check out all three Studio Habits poster versions here.
At the end of last school year I had to pack up everything in boxes so that they could put in new floors and paint all the walls. It took me two weeks of sorting and dumping 20 large rolling trash cans full of old supplies from the previous teacher (8 years ago) to clear the clutter. It was a hot and sweaty job (no air conditioning) and I know there is still stuff I can get rid of that I started just throwing in boxes at the last minute, but I think I am in a better place so far. Now I have to go in and arrange it in some sort of logical system so it doesn’t take over again. I teach in a style that is more Choice-based with studios so the materials really need to be accessible to the students both for starting and cleaning up. Any suggestions?
It’s hard to give a specific suggestion without knowing what those items are that you’re trying to get rid of. But what I tried to do was to devise projects based on those items to purge them (if they were still items in good condition but I just would never purchase myself). I will say that if any of it is something you can give to a classroom teacher, I’ve done a lot of that. I used to leave things in the teacher’s lounge all the time with a note to “help yourself.” This made it more fair play for whoever discovered them first.
I just got hired for a part time k-12 position but it’s a little bit of a drive for me so I won’t have as much time as I’d like. I saw the art room and there was an overwhelming amount of clutter. I’m hoping to get it sorted out in 3-4 days before school start. Fingers crossed. I wanted cute decor too but that might have to wait til next year it throughout the year. Wish me luck. Thanks for the great tips to get me started!!!
Best of luck, Heidi!
When I moved elementary positions; I inherited a room chock full of bags, boxes and totes full of donations to the previous art teacher. Anything from ribbons and rubberbands to baby food jars and bingo daubers. It was insane how much material she had chucked into her back room and never looked at again. I love teaching art and I love free supplies. But nothing is a benefit if you aren’t going to use it and you use up your space for things you will use with it instead.
I spent that summer hauling it all out, going through it all and separating out what I would use and wouldn’t and then organizing/labeling and returning it all back to a portioned “spot” to know where it was when I did need it. It was time consuming, yes, but I had other art teacher friends come and help me out. It made the work go faster than it would have and we celebrated with a nice luncheon with cocktails when we were done.
I have managed to keep the gift giving & donation people happy in my life by paying it forward when I receive something I know I just won’t use; I make sure to give it to someone who will. It keeps me more organized, thoughtful and sane. Hallelujah!
Are you able to share some photos of how you organised and labelled your resources? I am working on this now in a new art room and would love to see how you did yours.
Thanks,
Di
Hi Di, I just left my position in June so I don’t have pics on hand, sorry!
Quick question….(love your Roll-A-Masterpiece lessons btw) and Marie Kondo….You mentioned the styrofoam trays for Printmaking. I bought a bunch of them this year for the same reason but am regretting having to cut each of them down to make them flat. I’d rather use them for paint. What product did you find that you like better? TIA!
Thanks Catherine! I found it on Sax/School Specialty. It’s called, “Scratch-Foam Board.” When I search for it on Sax, it’s listed as “Scratch-Art Scratch Foam Board Printing Plates.” It’s like condensed foam. I had to explain to the kids not to push too hard into it otherwise they’d easily make holes. Of about 75 kids that used it, I might have taped 6 or 7 on the back so they wouldn’t break while printing. But still, it’s a much easier product for kids to use than those traditional styrofoam trays. Plus, no cutting!