I Have a Form for That

My lists have lists.

I’m trying to organize myself for a conference I’m attending this week, but it’s an uphill battle.  It’s safe to say that I am an “over planner”, so I have a whole packet of lists by this point that are supposedly guarding me against finding myself at my table without some essential item…like a pen.  Or Tic Tacs, apparently.

Is it worth it to plan everything so diligently?  This week we scheduled Parent-Teacher conferences in a meeting at school.  We get together to choose times from parent input and coordinate between classrooms so siblings are scheduled together. It can be a stressful meeting, with teachers calling out names and trying to quickly settle on times for families with multiple students.  I’m always trying to prepare myself by having my papers organized and my materials ready.  This year it occurred to me to Create a Form (which is one of my very favorite things to do in any arena) and organize the kids in my class alphabetically, with siblings listed according to their teachers’ names, with columns and headings for all sorts of steps in the process.  Making this form made me very, very happy and convinced me I would sail through the meeting with flying colors, not frustrating any of my colleagues by responding to shouts for time slots with a flurry of shifting through paperwork.

It didn’t really work out like I thought it would.  I was still stressed out, I was still confused, and I still probably frustrated my colleagues.  In the end, my beautiful form was just another piece of paper that I had to deal with.  It was a good lesson for me–sometimes I just have to let life happen.  And not every situation needs a form.

But…I am probably going to try it again this spring when we schedule conferences again–after all, I have it already made up and ready to go!!