Author: Sky Capriolo

InFLUence is Contagious – It’s OK to Spread It!

Nowadays, being an influencer is a bona fide job in the social media universe. But being influential doesn’t always have to involve selfies, shares and likes in the brick-and-mortar world. Great leaders know the difference between influence and authority, and between arrogance and celebrating their team. If you want to gain influence in any of your orbits, set your trajectory upward and bring others with you!

Gaining Influence

Successful leaders with influence have solid credibility. They’re accessible and confident. They’re infallibly ready to point out the wins and share their contagious passion. The best way to develop all those traits is to be very deliberate about it. To build influence, use materials that can weather storms, withstand shake-ups and yet be flexible enough to expand with you. (I feel like the “The Three Little Pigs” story could be handy here.) Indeed.com suggests 19 tips to get you started. They include:

• Build trust
• Stay humble
• Be competent
• Set up small wins for the team
• Help others find their voice
• Utilize active listening techniques

Indeed’s article says, ultimately, helping others achieve their goals is a hallmark of an influential leader. You’re a mentor, a sounding board and a cheerleader all at once! Emotional intelligence (understanding your own and others’ emotions) is key too, according to Business.com.  A strong Emotional Quotient (your level of empathy, communication style, and self-awareness) only strengthens the equation. 

Using Influence

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) shares that influence is the ability to affect the behavior of others in a particular direction using tactics that connect, inspire and involve them. Networking, and specifically intentional mingling, helps a person gain social capital, which is the currency used in the influence business. 

The CCL also shares that it’s important to carefully select when and how to influence others. When the moment is right, their experts recommend a three-pronged approach using tactics that appeal to the head, heart and hands. A mixture of logic and emotion can go a long way in creating gusto for an idea, a team or a goal. 

Going Viral

Being a great leader is one thing. Being an influential leader is stepping up the game. And you don’t have to have “manager” in your job description to be impactful in others’ lives. Being influential is about how you make people feel and react to your guidance, motivation and leadership abilities. If you find yourself contagious with passion and enthusiasm, don’t mask it! By all means, spread it far and wide. Those who catch it will not only continue to spread it but will also be thankful to you for getting it started. Just like great leaders create other leaders, those who influence create the next generation of enthusiasts. That’s what “going viral” means in today’s lexicon, whether online or in person. Good luck!

Cultural Awareness, Competence and Intelligence – Which Do You Have?

When we speak about culture in a business setting, we are often referring to the general vibe of the company. It may be comprised of its goals, mission and vision statements, employee interactions and added non-cash company benefits, like charity days, and reward and recognition programs. 

Cultural awareness, however, is a different topic altogether. Having cultural awareness, or going deeper to cultural competency or intelligence, adds to the company culture, but it’s an independent, and important, key to a successful business. The website Seek details many ways in which recognizing and utilizing cultural differences can help a company. These include:

• Striving for nuanced but clear communication
• Refining ideas around conflict resolution 
• Boosting productivity and innovation with new perspectives
• Understanding when/why employees feel included and respected

If your business deals internationally, having a strong grip on cultural details is obviously extremely important. As with most things, there are levels of understanding we can strive to achieve. We will lay them out for you to gauge where you land.

Awareness – The Foot in the Door

According to EasyLlama.com culture is the collective term used to identify the customs, social behavior, and ideas of a particular people or society. Think of culture like a recipe with ingredients such as:

• Traditions
• Language
• Nationality
• Beliefs
• Community connections
• Personal identity
• Food
• Arts

Being culturally aware is the base level of understanding. You recognize your coworker or neighbor grew up with a different background that influences their current lifestyle, choices and actions. Furthermore, Georgetown University points out that cultural awareness also reflects how you react to people of other cultures when they are very different from your own. 

Competency – Joining the Conversation

Like awareness, cultural competency refers to the recognition of and reaction to different cultures within your sphere and then adds in the ability to function and interact with people of different backgrounds. Diversity Atlas states that to be competent you need to be aware of your own assumptions as you interact with people. Companies that are considered culturally competent have policies that consider culture-based differences in every aspect of work. For us at Motivation Excellence, we work with people all over the world as part of our incentive group travel programs. Knowing the nuances of how people work in Thailand, versus Greece, versus Hawaii helps us pave the way for a more enjoyable travel experience for our clients. 

Being culturally competent can be displayed right in the office too. Do you think about what kinds of food people don’t, won’t or can’t eat because of their upbringing, dietary needs or personal preferences? Does your office recognize holidays other than the national holidays celebrated in the United States? Your very own people can be the best source of suggestions and information when it comes to highlighting various cultures in the office – just ask around!

Intelligence – Being Part of the Solution

Shown in short as CQ, cultural intelligence is especially important for companies working in a global atmosphere. Diversity Atlas says companies with CQ are sensitive to different ways of thinking and problem solving which improves work innovation. CQ requires flexibility and adaptability and relies heavily on emotional and social intelligence. 

CQ is particularly important for governments, public sector businesses and non-profit organizations. It’s a great skill set for managers to have in any business that is hiring from a diverse talent pool. According to PennState Extension, having high CQ gives leaders the ability to interpret someone’s behavior in the same way that a person’s friends or family would. In return, if an employee feels like their manager understands and respects their culture, they’re more likely to trust the manager and the company. That contentment leads to lower turnover and higher productivity. 

If you’re interested in learning more about developing CQ, MindTools.com delves into the four traits high CQ people exhibit: 

• A drive to learn about other cultures
• Knowledge of how cultures influence behaviors
• Strategies to respond to cultural differences
• Acting in culturally sensitive ways

Level Up

No matter where you are on the stairs of cultural understanding, there’s always room to move up. According to the UN, three-quarters of the world’s major conflicts include a cultural dimension. You may not be solving an equation for world peace in your own life, but having a better grasp of how backgrounds influence thought processes and reactions is a great skill to nurture. 

Every year, May 21^st is the World Day for Cultural Diversity, also known as Diversity Day. You can click on the link to learn more about it and how you can celebrate it in your own home or workplace. Our world cultures are becoming increasingly intertwined. Those who are interested in learning from and interacting with people from different backgrounds will always be the ones moving forward faster. It’s not always easy, but the most rewarding things rarely are. 

Track Your Own Footprints to Improve Our Carbon Emissions

What exactly is a carbon footprint? According to the Nature Conservancy it’s the total amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by our actions. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, with carbon dioxide accounting for nearly 80% of global human-caused emissions. You can actually calculate your personal carbon footprint on a variety of websites. 

Listen to the Experts

Greenhouse gases are causing our planet’s temperature to rise, which is known as global warming. The gases we emit actually trap the heat from the sun inside our atmosphere. The root cause is from humans burning fossil fuels. These are some of the big ways we’ve caused the world to warm faster now than at any other point in history:

• Generating power
• Manufacturing goods
• Cutting down trees
• Producing food
• Consuming too much 
• Leaving behind too much waste

There are things each of us individually can do to help mitigate our own carbon footprint.

• Avoid transportation if you can – get on that bike, or take a walk instead
• Reduce your energy consumption – are solar panels an option?
• Reuse rather than buy new – find that trendy thrift store near you

Maybe We Can Help

David Jobes, the owner and CEO at Motivation Excellence, has long been eco-minded. When he purchased the company in 2018, he introduced a “no paper policy.” Of course, we all use some paper, but we now file things in the cloud rather than in the dozens of filing cabinets we ended up selling or donating. He also used many eco-conscious options when designing our new headquarters a few years ago, including carbon-neutral floors, LED motion-activated lights, and a living wall of moss to reduce humidity and produce oxygen. 

I decided to ask my colleagues what they do to reduce their carbon footprints. Maybe they’ll give you an idea or two!

Lilly, in our travel department, says she:

• Leaves reusable bags in her car so she doesn’t forget them when she shops
• Omits all animal products from her diet and lifestyle
• Loves the secondhand shops for furniture and clothing

Jillian works in our Traverse City office and collects bubble wrap from the building janitor to use for her own shipping. She also donates it to local thrift stores so they can wrap delicate treasures heading to a new home.  

Josee, our warehouse coordinator, likes to:

• Hit resale shops 
• Use reusable bags and water bottles
• Turn off the lights when she leaves a room 
• Consume the food she buys, rather than buy so much she has to throw some away

Michelle, our merchandise buyer, opts for conservation over convenience by:

• Having fabric napkins and reusable party-ware for entertaining
• Using a cooler-type bag for office lunches, and opting for fabric bags over plastic baggies
• Switching soap dispensers to refillable ones
• Composting year-round

Allison, our sales support assistant, offers that she:

• Uses products from LastObject that replace single-use items
• Switched to LED lighting, and uses timers 
• Is very mindful of fully using groceries and personal products to reduce waste

Rhonda, our VP of Sales, looks at ways to conserve energy, like:

• Driving a hybrid car
• Installing solar panels on her home
• Switching from jugs of laundry detergent to sheets that come in a recycled box

Personally, I have several things I do consistently, like:

• Waiting for multiple needs before doing an online order
• Having recycling receptacles in nearly every room
• Rinsing out glass and plastic food containers so they can be recycled rather than trashed

I’m also starting to cut up t-shirts to use in lieu of paper towels and napkins. I’m not great at using them consistently yet, but I’m working on it.

Take One Step at a Time

And that’s just it, right? We all need to work at being better stewards of our own space on Earth. Convenience is amazing, but it will never be better than healthy living in a world full of renewable resources, clean water and air, and green spaces to enjoy! So, adjust your shopping habits, switch to reusable containers, or dig your own garden this summer and watch your carbon footprint start to fade. Even if it’s just a little, you can feel good about it, and it will likely lead to more adjustments in the future. Good luck!

Celebrating Herstory is a Win for Everyone!

In this blog, we will be highlighting some recent wins by women as well as shine a light on some women from the past you may not have heard about before. 

At Motivation Excellence we have a lot to celebrate when it comes to women. Nearly 75% of our entire team is female, including 83% of our salespeople and half of our top leadership positions. The latter is by design too.  

“When I bought the company in 2018, I made it a priority to make sure we had women in leadership roles after decades of having a vast majority male leadership team. Most of our staff has been women for a long time, they should be represented at the top levels too,” says Owner and President of Motivation Excellence, David Jobes. 

He adds, “The key to having a successful business is to have good representation of the industry you’re in. Adding diversity of thinking to your leadership team filters down through the organization. By developing a diverse team, it allows you to explore options and generate new ideas that differentiate you in the marketplace and create opportunities for everyone.”

Great for Business

Jobes is not alone in seeing positive results with women in leadership positions.

According to an article published by the American Psychological Association, there are decades of research that show women leaders improve productivity, collaboration and fairness. The Peterson Institute for Professional Economics published a study nearly ten years ago that women in corporate leadership roles can significantly increase profitability. 

Speaking of profitable women, let’s look at the blockbuster hit of last year. The “Barbie” movie was the highest grossing film of 2023 IN THE WORLD, and is the most successful domestic and global release by Warner Bros. ever. Greta Gerwig became the first solo woman director to hit the $1 billion dollar movie mark. And to really shine a light on Gerwig, she is the first director ever (male or female) to have her first three solo directorial films be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (Lady Bird, Little Women, Barbie). 

Music to the Ears

While “Barbie” only won one Oscar this month, it was for best song, making Billie Eilish the youngest person ever to win two Oscars. She’s 22. She took over the record from another woman though. Luise Rainer had two Best Actress Oscars at the age of 28 back in 1938. 

Earlier this year, another female musician, Taylor Swift broke Elvis Presley’s record for most weeks spent at Number 1 on the Billboard album chart as a solo artist. The new length of time to beat is now 68 weeks! Fellow mega-popstar, Beyonce, holds the record for most Grammys won in a lifetime at 32 golden gramophones. Both women hold multiple other top achievements too. It’s estimated both singers have contributed $10 billion dollars to the US economy in 2023!

Sports Stars

Moving over to recent sports feats, Caitlin Clark has broken some long-held records by women and men in NCAA sports, fittingly during Women’s History Month. She now has set the Division 1 records for most 3-pointers in a season and most points scored in a college career. Both of which were previously held by men. Outside of NCAA history, another woman, Pearl Moore, still holds the most points scored record for college basketball. Although unlikely, Clark could claim that one too. Either way – go women!

Staying in the sports realm, Katie Ledecky now has more individual world swimming titles than Michael Phelps, who was the world record holder. Interestingly, in long-distance open water swimming, women tend to have a slight advantage over men. The nearly 20-mile Catalina Channel route is one of the most consistently popular marathon swims in the world. The first person to swim both ways in one jaunt was a woman, Greta Andersen, in 1958. The fastest one-way times are held by women. In 1976, Penny Lee Dean swam from the mainland to Catalina Island in 7 hours and 15 minutes. In 2012, Grace van der Byl set the record for the reverse swim at 7 hours and 27 minutes. 

Celebrate and Elevate

March may be Women’s History Month, but women make history every month of the year. Take a moment after you’ve read this blog, whether it’s March or not, and reach out to an important woman in your life and let her know you “see” her and how she’s impacted you. Be the person who lifts up women at work and in your personal life. As a woman, be an example for other women, no matter their age. When we consistently celebrate women’s successes, we pave the way for a brighter future for everyone!

Fencing Industry

Creating a must-attend event for top-performing customers and vendors helping boost average sales growth 230% over the first 12 years (and counting).

Business Issue

Our fencing industry client went through restructuring. They wanted to create a unified program to build stronger relationships with contractors and increase market share and loyalty with existing customers. As part of their vision, they also wanted to give their customers educational resources to strengthen their own businesses, as well as provide networking opportunities with other successful business owners and better access to company leadership.

Our Solution

We developed an interactive Buying Show weekend that incorporates a fun destination with top vendor partners in the fencing industry, in-attendance deals and financing specials on fencing products, learning and networking sessions, and world-class entertainment. Qualifying contractors’ incremental sales funds the event. We built a performance tracking website, created a robust engagement campaign and produced best practices webinars led by company leadership.

Outcome

The Buying Show has become a must-attend event for our client’s top customers, with many checking in through the last month of the qualification period to check their status. Competition for top contractor rewards is intense. Our client’s parent company is thrilled with how this solution drove a rapid change in business relationships and revenue. This program started in 2012 and continues today.

HVAC

BUSINESS ATMOSPHERE

Following the lethargic recovery from the Great Recession, a
nationally ranked and independently owned HVAC and plumbing
distributor wanted to drive incremental sales and gain market
share with an energetic and engaging self-funded travel incentive
for their loyal customers and preferred prospects.

Creating A Solution

Working with our client’s financial and marketing teams, we examined historic
sales, GP, and growth potential to develop a meticulous and reasonable goal-setting structure and tracking system. Participants received credit for meeting their personalized goals and earned more credit when they surpassed them.

Self-Funded Travel Reward

We created a travel incentive program for each customer and their respective sales representatives and managers. Customers who realized their pre-determined incremental sales growth earned the award. By doing this, the entire program was self-funded. Including the company representatives on the travel experience strengthened the business relationships immensely.

Support For Success

We worked with each company sales rep and manager to create presentations for their customers and prospects. An online performance tracking platform allowed company reps and customers to view daily progress to goal. This fostered engagement between the customers and the sales team. Customers, prospects, sales reps, and managers received monthly electronic reports and updates.

Rewarding Results

The revenue and profit growth for the enrolled participants outperformed non-enrolled participants from the inception of the travel incentive program. Over a time of five years, the quantity of travel award winners grew from 75 couples to 250 couples. By establishing an ongoing self-funded travel incentive program, our client has realized real growth and market share gain, a recognized increase in loyalty, and enhanced relationships with their customers and sales team members.

Spring Break and Travel Advisories – What Can You Do if They Overlap?

You’ve probably seen recent news stories about Americans being the victims of serious crimes on a couple of Caribbean islands. Currently the U.S. Department of State has travel warnings out for two prime locations for spring break revelers: The Bahamas (level 2) and Jamaica (level 3). For a full list of travel advisories worldwide visit their website. 

(Department of State Travel Advisories Image)

What does this mean if you’ve already booked your tickets to one of these destinations? You likely will not be able to get a refund for your airfare or resort just because of the advisories. So, what can you do? Joe Reise, Motivation Excellence Director, Travel Purchasing, Planning and Supplier Relations, shares several tips to travel safely no matter the location.

“When traveling alone without the assistance of a professional travel staff like we provide for our incentive travel groups, arming yourself and people back home with important information is key,” Reise says. “Share your itinerary, flight numbers, hotel address and phone number, with someone you trust who is not traveling with you.”

Planning Stage

Reise has a few other recommendations for travelers as they’re planning their journey. 

• Buy travel insurance. We recommend Travelex. This will give you better refund options if you cancel your trip for whatever reason.

• Register with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. This is a free service that alerts the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate of your travel plans. In return, it gives them the ability to contact you in case of emergency. 
• Save the Department of State overseas contact number in case of trouble: 202.501.4444. They can assist in getting you to the proper resources for help. 

Leading Up to Travel 

As you get closer to your departure date, you can do some research to help ensure a smoother transition from everyday life to vacation life. Reise says it’s not very time-consuming and will really help if you run into unexpected situations. 

• Use Google maps to get familiar with the area around where you are staying. Look for the nearest police station and medical facility. Are there any landmarks near your hotel that will help you navigate back there if you get lost?
• Save the contact information for the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Officers are available 24/7 for emergency assistance. 
• Know the reputable taxi and rideshare companies for your location. Tripadvisor, Fodors, and other travel websites often have location-specific articles you can search for online.

Enjoying Vacation Time

There’s nothing quite like that first day of vacation to put you in a relaxed state. Reise says relaxing is great, but for maximum quality time, take some simple precautions. 

• Watch what you drink. Know if the local water is OK. NEVER leave your drink unattended. Don’t overdrink alcohol.
• Pay attention as you travel from your resort into town. Look for those landmarks you spotted on Google maps. Travel in pairs, or more, when you can. Only take reputable transportation. 
• Have your resort name and address written down on a card when you leave the property.
• Memorize or write down key phrases in the local language like:
  • I’m lost.
  • Please help me. 
  • Do you speak English?
  • I need a doctor.
• Designate a meeting spot if people get separated.

Whether you’re heading out on spring break soon, or looking to travel later in the year, proper planning before you go and simple precautions on-site will make your adventure safer to take and easier to enjoy. Happy travels!

Get to Know ME with Steve Chemello

Steve Chemello is our Get to Know ME employee spotlight for February. It’s our shortest month and as you can see below, his answers are short and sweet too. Thanks, Steve, for giving us a tiny peek into what makes you, you!

What’s your current title and how long have you been in the incentive industry?

I’m a developer.  It will be eight years in April.

What do you like about your job?

Building systems and applications is enjoyable for me.

What’s something you want to share about the people you work with at Motivation Excellence?

I enjoy working with them.

What motivates you to accomplish things in your life (work or personal)?

Work == Money. Personal == Family.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I love to go sailing in the summer.

One thing that always makes you laugh is?

George Carlin stand-up is still great today.

Of Course You Need a Personal Brand! Here’s Why (and How).

Have you ever sat down and really examined who you are?  Your core values, adjectives you’d like used to describe you, your biggest strengths and why people should want to connect with you? If you’re looking to establish a personal brand, this is a must. You, as a brand, encompasses:

• who you are 
• what you stand for
• why people should care

How do you want people to feel when they see you or hear your name? For this blog, we’re examining how to establish your personal brand and why it’s important for nearly everyone these days. It becomes something you carry with you in-person and, increasingly, in our digital worlds.

Reputation + Brand = Past, Present & Future

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and billionaire, is credited with saying, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” I’d say the vast majority of us would like those words to be kind and positive. There is work involved to get to that point, and it goes beyond your reputation. Harvard Business Review posted an article that says your reputation is tied to your past actions, while your brand is about visibility and the values you represent. In other words, don’t rest on your laurels. Be intentional with who you are going forward. 

Allie Barke, of Allie Barke Social Media Marketing, has made a business out of her own branding, and also helps other companies capture that deliberate marketing space. She’s our social media partner, in fact!

“I started a fashion blog back in high school (15 years ago!). I started with just a website, then as social media became more popular, I joined Instagram and grew my presence there. My experience in branding/promoting myself led to various internships and jobs in digital marketing. What started as a fun creative outlet led to my work helping businesses, large and small, with their digital presence,” says Barke.

In today’s highly digital age, Barke insists everyone needs to be aware of their personal brand, even if they don’t think they have one.  

“Your digital identity is part of (and I would say a significant part of) your reputation. Good or bad, that’s the reality nowadays. If you have no digital footprint, that’s saying something in itself. If you’re applying for a job, the recruiter is Googling you. If you’re going on a first date, that person is probably Googling you. If you’re a business, your customers are searching for you online too.

The data is compelling: 9 out of 10 people will look up a new business online before visiting; 1 in 4 consumers are very unlikely to visit a business that doesn’t have an online presence.”

Follow in These Footsteps

Universally, the first step to creating a brand is answering some simple questions, like:

• What motivates you?
• What’s your inspiration?
• What are your goals?
• What makes you unique?
• Why are you valuable in a certain space (work, community, etc.)

It can definitely seem a bit overwhelming as you begin. Keep your answers short and simple, then build more depth later as you discover nuances you hadn’t realized existed. Barke gives these tips as reminders to keep you on task: 

• Focus on what makes you unique.
  • This could be in your career or personal life, or both. A mixture of the two is often the most interesting!
• Share what you’re passionate about.
  • It makes the whole process easier, and you’ll come off as more authentic. 
• Don’t worry about pleasing everyone.
  • A smaller, more engaged audience is often better than going too broad. 
• Don’t be afraid to get vulnerable or use humor.
  • Remember that on any platform, people first and foremost, want to be entertained. 

It’s a Process to See Progress

Developing a personal brand does not happen overnight. Take it in chunks: 

• get through your simple questions
• define your target audience
• know your goals 
• select the medium best fitted to your needs (email, social media, website, etc.) 

As for the medium, when it comes to social media options, Barke suggests concentrating on one or two platforms at first. “It’s easier to grow your brand when you focus your attention on learning the ins and outs of two platforms vs. four.”

Two final points: One, personal branding needs to be authentic. Just like a product that doesn’t live up to what it promised, if you fake who you are and it comes out (it always comes out), you’ll be labeled as disingenuous. That can result in losing a job, getting dumped or any number of negative outcomes online. Instead of having to rebuild trust, be truthful from the beginning. 

And, two, make your branding a regular habit. Not only does it solidify how people react to you, but consistency also builds momentum. That tide of goodwill can carry you further toward your goals, with a lot less energy on your part. Good luck!

Prioritize Organizing for Best Results

A lot of us start the New Year (or new month, or new week… you get it) with intentions to get and stay organized. We’re here to help with that task, and since it’s apropos, this blog is organized into sections so you can skip right to where you want to go! But first, let’s get to why being organized is helpful. Mindtools.com says being organized has a big impact on your overall success. Motion, a digital planning software company, says organization directly relates to quality of life too.

Here are some reasons to get organized this year:

• Increases productivity
• Boosts focus
• Lessens stress levels
• Ignites creativity 
• Improves mental and physical health

Okay, let’s get started! Peruse the sections below to get the most out of what you need from this assemblage of organizational tips. Many of them come directly from our team at Motivation Excellence. Most of us juggle multiple client projects at once, from group travel preparation and planning to reward sourcing and fulfillment. 

How to Stay Organized at the Office

Alison Gavitt is on our sales team. As a Strategic Account Director, she has daily tasks that involve multiple clients, as well as prospects. She subscribes to the Touch It Once principle. The gist is that when something crosses your desk or laptop, you deal with it right away. This could mean fully completing the task it indicates, or making a decision on how best to move it to the next stage of completion. This cuts out a lot of wasted time when you start something, move onto something else, then come back to the first thing and have to re-familiarize yourself with the details of the project. 

Alison: “It encourages immediate resolution and action and helps to keep my workday on track and my desk clean!”

Trisha Neff is a Tech Project Manager in our travel department. She finds herself juggling multiple travel programs at once and says multi-tasking is not her friend. She concentrates on one portion of one program at a time. 

Trisha: “What I like to do is make a start on each project one by one, so then when I come back to them later, I find that completing the tasks are much easier since I’ve already started them. Sometimes I’m even pleasantly surprised at how much I got done initially.”

Keep a To-Do List

Lilly Jobes and Brittany Cerrillos are Travel Program Coordinators, and despite being in their 20s, both like putting pen to paper rather than keeping digital to-do lists. 

Lilly: “I like to create one just about every day to keep me focused on the most pressing tasks. I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders when I get to cross a task off.”

Brittany: “Writing things down helps me remember, and it is something on my desk that is visibly ‘open.’ I love using sticky notes too. They help me keep certain tasks at the front of my mind.”

Michelle Lien-Burdick is our Merchandise Buyer. She touches any of our programs that use gifting as part of their reward structure. She is also part of our customer service team, so she has long term projects and immediate action items she needs to do daily. 

Michelle: “I mark my Outlook calendar if someone owes me something, or if it’s the date I need to place an order for a program. I also keep all my notes for a program as organized as I can whether it’s digitally in a master spreadsheet or hand-written on a printed-out email request that I then file. This helps me get caught up to speed without a lot of searching to figure out where the conversation left off.”

Home Sweet Home Organization Tips

There’s a lot of overlap between the office and home nowadays. Organization is paramount in this situation as you don’t want your 12-year-old accidentally bringing your presentation notes to school instead of his math homework. Indeed.com gives 20 tips to successfully balance the work-home scenario. They include:

• Sticking to a work schedule
• Carving out a work-only space
• Focusing on one task at a time
• Finding a planner that works for you

For Allison Stewart, our sales support assistant, who works a hybrid schedule, the last item on that bullet list is critical to her. 

Allison: “Documenting event details (date, time, location, etc.), especially twice, is helpful for me since I have a photographic memory. This way, whether I am at work or at home, my calendars are updated & synced.”

Having access to a cloud server is important when you’re working from multiple places. At Motivation Excellence, we try NOT to use paper as much as possible, so using digital methods like OneDrive or Google Drive help ensure documents we need can be found on any of our devices in any location (Wi-Fi is important to this too).

The Spruce, a home improvement publication, says having an organized home (that stays that way) is possible with a little forethought. They suggest starting with a list of each room in your house and then what needs to be organized in each space. Must-haves for this include drawer dividers, hooks of every variety and a label maker. 

The lifestyle magazine, Real Simple, suggests getting over the procrastination hump of organizing your home or office by creating a card deck. Each card states a room or task that needs to be taken care of. Each day, pick a card and get started! They also suggest setting a timer for each task. You can set it for a specific length of time and dedicate yourself to organizing until the alarm goes off, or you can start a stopwatch when you begin a task. Often, they say, a task takes much less time than anticipated!

Inside Your Mind – How to Declutter Your Thoughts

Okay, now we’re getting personal! What are the best practices for organizing thoughts? The Order Expert says you need to convert your thoughts into physical form to start the organization process. So, yes, grab that pencil and notepad, or open up a new Word doc on your PC. Once you get your thoughts, ideas, worries, goals, etc. down in words, they become much more actionable. 

Some other ways to help move your mind from a cluttered swirl of incomplete concepts to a more streamlined place of peace include:

• Cleaning up your physical surroundings
• Delegating tasks (whether at home or work) to a teammate
• Using time management skills
• Identifying long-term goals and the steps needed to reach them

Nowhere is a cluttered mind more evident than in reading an email! Trisha, mentioned in the above “At the Office” section, uses this tip to keep her mind and her emails inline.  

Trisha: “For lengthy or important emails, I compose them without the TO and CC fields filled out. Even when I’m replying, I remove the recipients in the address fields until I’ve double-checked that the email is ready to send, and then add in the recipients. You only have to accidentally send ONE email before it was ready to go to know this is helpful!”

Wrapping it Up

We could go onto other areas that need organizing (how does the interior of your car look?), but we’ve covered enough for this blog. Of course, how organization looks is in the eye of the beholder. Our favorite messy genius, Albert Einstein, is credited with saying,

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”

You must decide what works for you. If you find peace working inside what some would call “cluttered chaos” then, by all means, continue. Most of us are somewhere in between “a place for everything, and everything in its place” and giving into a tornado of jumbled disorder. At least now, if you’re looking for a roadmap to the tidy land of organized bliss, you’ve got it!