Kate Bateman is one of my colleagues in the Howard County Public School System. We recently did one of my favorite things, which is to eat hot pot and geek out over stationary. Afterwards, Kate showed me an image of her amazing desk setup. I was inspired. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to share more of people’s workflows and setups on this blog?

Kate agreed to be a part of my experiment in a new series on here, “What’s On Your Desk?”

I prepped some questions for Kate, she answered and provided pictures.

Kate, take it away. What’s on your desk?

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My name is Kate Bateman. I am a former professional orchestral flutist, but gave that up to spend time with The Youths at Mount View Middle School, where I teach band and general music. This is my 8th year as a teacher.

I also have a stupid amount of hobbies- I speak Korean conversationally, I love painting, I dabble in photography, I read a lot, I love cooking (when I have the time to enjoy the process of it), and if I have the money, I will travel any chance I get.

What are a few of the things on your desk that make you the most productive?

One is my planner (a Hobonichi weeks), which keeps me organized when I have a million things going on. I got the version with extra blank pages in the back, so I also use it to keep track of to-dos both in and out of work. It’s old school, but it works for me.

The other is a simple analog timer. Whenever I need to sit down and get something done but am feeling particularly unmotivated, I stick the timer on for 15 minutes at a time, take a break for 5 minutes, then rinse and repeat until I can’t concentrate anymore.

What computing devices do you always have on your desk? How do they fit into your workflow?

Just my old iMac and my iPad. I use Google for most of my work, along with a few other apps to help with organization (Craft and Goodnotes being the main two). These can all be accessed easily from any desktop or my iPad, so I leave my school-provided chromebook at work. It’s clunky anyway.

What other tools do you keep close by?

Everything else is SUPER low tech! I almost feel like I’m betraying you, Robby.

I have all five of my fountain pens close by. My favorite, and most beloved, is my Pilot Vanishing Point, which was worth every (exhorbitant) penny because I use it all day, every day. All my pens feel different to use and they all have different color Pilot Iroshizuku inks in them. I use my Vanishing Point the most, but I also reach for others depending on my mood.

I also have all of my journals within easy reach to the side on this Ikea cutting-board-turned-bookshelf. I have my daily 5-year journal, my Commonplace journal (where I write down things I’ve read, quotes, lyrics, notes from therapy, anything thought-provoking that I want to come back to later), my sketchbook, my journal for my National Board Certification classes, and my notebook where I take all of my notes in my Korean lessons.

I “built” this desk specifically out of an Ikea butcher block countertop, a set of Ikea Alex drawers, and a little cube with shelves specifically to store my art supplies and stationery, while still giving me a lot of room to spread out. All of my stationery and art supplies are within easy reach, they’re just hidden in the drawers (except for my oil and gouache paintbrushes).

Are there any workflows that are effective for your productivity these days?

Specifically here, at this desk? Nah.

At school though, I start every morning by writing down what we actually got done the day before in each class, and then quickly making a new plan for each class for that day. It gives me a chance to see how much I still have to plan, if I need to make copies of materials, or prepare the classroom in any way, etc.

Usually once I get through period 1, I start my to-do list. It’s mostly a brain dump- what do I still need to get through the day? What do I need to get through the rest of the week? Who do I need to contact about which concerns or questions?

I teach five completely different classes every day, and each day I see around 150 students, so having the brain dump time lets me see everything all at once, and enables me to prioritize. As someone wise (Ben Denne, a wonderful HCPSS colleague) once said, working quickly isn’t really working quickly, it’s just about putting out the biggest fire first.

How does your work change when you are mobile, or away from this setup?

The type of work I do is definitely different. When I am at my desk at school, I often am shuffling a lot of papers, and several binders with my band, sectional and general music lesson plans, attendance sheets, and resources. Work at school is a lot of admin- putting grades in, emails, grading, updating Canvas etc. This is also the work that is a lot easier to do when I’ve been in front of kids for several hours straight and don’t necessarily have a lot of gas left in the tank, mentally.

I feel like I do a lot more of my “big picture” planning when I’m at my home desk. If I need to sit down and plan an entire unit, rethink part of a unit, write playing exercises, or re-write a part, it’s much easier to do it here, farther removed from the day-to-day chaos of school.

What’s something on your desk that is unique to you? Why do you have it?

I love my Ikea pegboard behind my computer. It has a bunch of little trinkets and things I’ve picked up from various travels. The majority are from Korea- a photobooth strip from Seoul with my friends Seungwon and Seungmin; a cloth from one of the lovely host I stayed with in Itaewon; a bookmark from the Dae-O bookstore in Seoul (a pilgrimage for fans of BTS’s leader RM); several keychains and postcards. I also have a postcard from Bangkok, where I went with my coworkers/family members Matt and Jon and Randy and a tile from the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France, where I went this summer with my wonderful friends Justine and Lewis.

The little jar which holds my gel and ball point pens is also special; it’s the jar from the dip that my friends Caitlin and Danny brought to a New Year’s party we hosted a couple years ago. I have a figurine from a different trip to Korea that brings back memories of Seoul and Busan with my friends Nick and Nicole. I also love my three-legged pig (which symbolizes goodwill and luck) from my friends Charlie and Carey, who I met through DnD.

I have a lot more trinkets from different trips and times of my life everywhere in my home. Every time I see these things, I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have had made such fantastic memories, and to have made them with wonderful people.