I work part-time, but it is often a full-time job but with lots of flexibility, meaning that I work from home at least 40% of the time. I only have to be "on-site" for my job about 15 hours per week. The rest of my work time (mostly prep work and planning) occurs in my home office. My biggest work issue is keeping up with the two work bags and the contents in them that I carry back and forth to/from work. One is a messenger type bag with preschool level books, crafts, printed lesson plans, my "idea/brainstorming notebook", etc. The other bag is for my laptop. Almost everything essential to lesson planning and administration paperwork for staff, parents, and children are in documents that are organized into files by subject on my computer; however, I must have "hard copies" of registration forms, lesson plans, etc. available to parents and staff. My biggest issue is keeping up with all of the loose sample crafts, patterns, idea books, story-time books from the library, etc. I have colored file folders for these items and a good filing system at work (thanks to the help of a friend!); however, most days I must carry some files, books, etc. home. Where I get in trouble is when I'm in our home office and spread everything out to work. Most of the time, I feel as if I must spread all of my work out so I can "see" it in order to remember to do it. I keep "to do" lists and even try to only take out one task at a time, but I have this fear (possibly a learned fear from dealing with ADD all my life) that I'll forget to do something. Are there any other early childhood educators with the same issues? Can you relate to the feeling of needing to spread everything out to plan, prepare, etc.? This is my first full year of being administrator/director of an early childhood program. From what I've heard from other educators, the first year is the worst and once I'm organized, the next year will go much smoother.

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