When I was a little girl, I remember being on a road trip with my family. It was a hot summer day. We’d been driving for hours. My parents were in the front. I was in the back seat nestled between my sister and brother. All of the sudden, my Dad saw a sign for “Homemade Pies.” He loved homemade anything, and especially homemade cherry pie. We left the main road and followed the signs in search of pie. We drove and drove and drove. I’m not quite sure what went wrong, but we ended up getting lost and never finding any pie. To this day, I still remember how intensely motivated and focused my Dad was in his pie pursuit. It makes me smile.

I was reminded of the pie quest when my husband and I were recently on a day trip. We saw a sign that caught our attention. As we whizzed past the “Texas BBQ” sign, we debated the pros and cons of turning the car around to have an early lunch. Since we love BBQ, we were motivated to reverse course and change our plans.

So the question is, what motivates you to action? What motivates you to change course? Is flexibility involved? It might not be a “Homemade Pie” sign, but perhaps it’s a different kind of sign like having a deadline or an accountability partner. Maybe it’s the physicality of crossing something off your list. Does the sign come in the form of a particular song, scent, or image, which motivates you to change, organize, or let go?

What are your motivational “signs”? Come join the conversation and share your thoughts.

With all the things that make it seem like there’s never enough time, it’s amazing any of us get things done. So how is it that between carpooling kids, working with clients, keeping in touch with our friends, eating, sleeping and relaxing are we able to manage this dance of life? When we add extra projects or responsibilities, the dance becomes even more frenetic.

My spring business goal was to redesign my Oh, So Organized! logo and website. I began my organizing company almost 20 years ago when our daughters were babies. I’ve had the same logo since 1993 and website since 2001. It was definitely time for a change.

Working on this redesign has been exciting and at times frustrating. Mostly, though, it was an opportunity to step back, take a fresh look and work on this long-term goal. I assembled a wonderful design team. My heartfelt gratitude goes to logo designer Ron Romain of Ron and Joe and web designer Betsy Cohen of Positive Element. They brainstormed, discussed, worked and reworked until we got the right look and feel. I am grateful for their enthusiasm, creativity, expertise and humor. I couldn’t have accomplished this without them.

What struck me, though, was that during the project, all of us were juggling our time. We each have our own businesses, children, spouses, friends, daily responsibilities, monkey wrenches that throw us off track and an unending host of interruptions, emergencies and serendipities. So how did we do it? There were some common threads we all used to manage the project and our time.

• Parameters – We defined the scope, timeframe, budget and expectations. When things strayed off course, we brought things back on track through reminders about the parameters.

• Focus – We each had many other responsibilities and distractions, but when we put on our “project hats” we focused only on that. We gave each other the gift of 100% attention.

• Flexibility – This was key for all of us. Between working in different time zones, client meetings and juggling kids, flexibility was essential. That translated into some unusual working hours and negotiations for times to check in with one another.

• Communication – Thank goodness for email. While some work was done on the actual telephone, the bulk of our communication happened through email. It allowed for clear and direct communication of images and ideas. It also helped each of us better manage our time by being able to respond and work around our other responsibilities.

• Patience – We allowed each other enough time and patience to let Linda “experiment” with just one more color, font or layout. I slowed myself down enough to realize that the waiting and developing was well worth the outcome. While you always want things done yesterday, the snags or delays that happen during any project are part of the process.

• Reason – Knowing when to get some sleep. Knowing when to say no. Knowing when to stop for the night. While we all worked hard, we also knew when enough was enough.

I’d love to hear from you. What is essential for your time management juggle?

I’ve always been a working mother. That helped me learn how to juggle many hats, be more flexible and find joy in the moments. Especially when our daughters were young, life was particularly hectic. Now that they’re both in college, the daily schedule isn’t as filled with their schedules, but juggling, flexibility and joyful moments are still very much part of my life.

Recently, our girls came home for their winter breaks. I worked some, but also took off time to spend with them. For those of you that have college-aged kids, you know that their hours are quite different from most parents. They stay up very late and sleep even later. There are frequent comings and goings between visiting friends, running errands and taking day trips. With our different schedules, it was important to grab time with them when I could, even if it was brief.

When I think back to the girls’ winter break, it was full with wonderful memories of both short and extended exchanges. Time together sometimes included a car ride and conversation on the way to an errand. Sometimes the moments were longer when we had leisurely meals together. This beautiful collage included walks in the snow covered woods, sipping tea and coffee at assorted cafes, snuggling and watching movies, grocery shopping, cooking, listening and dancing to music, visiting family, having friends over, laughing, donating blood, going to our favorite cupcake shop, getting lots of extra hugs and seeing our girls enjoying each others’ company.

Our lives are made up of moments. Joy is present if you allow yourself to feel it. What moments have you recently enjoyed with your kids? I’d love to hear one or two of your favorite memories.

Gratitude is something I think about every day. The smallest things like the joy I feel when I see a vibrant color to the larger ones, like being thankful for a loving family. As Thanksgiving arrives this week, gratitude and thankfulness are in my thoughts even more than usual.

My husband and I have always enjoyed having gatherings. There’s nothing quite like bringing positive energy and love into our home. Even before we were married, we hosted our share of events. The tradition has continued over the last 27 years to include birthdays, holidays and impromptu gatherings.

In particular, we love hosting Thanksgiving. Each time it rolls around, we reminisce about two of our classic Thanksgiving adventures.  No matter how many times we recall these stories, we continue to delight in them.

The first Thanksgiving we hosted was shortly after we got married. We invited both sides of the family to our loft in Brooklyn. Steve was very serious about cooking the main dishes (turkey, stuffing and gravy.) He worked for hours, maybe days, preparing the gravy. At the last minute, when it was time to strain the giblets from the liquid, and right as our guests were about it arrive, I heard this big scream coming from the kitchen. I then heard many other explicatives, which I won’t repeat here. It sounded like someone was wounded.

“I’m grateful for the mishaps of life.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVPO

Just as his aunt and uncle arrived, Steve poured the gravy into the strainer without a dish below to catch the gravy. As he poured, he realized his “prize” gravy was going right down the drain! Right after that happened, his aunt walked over to check things out and said to him, “Do you think you have enough gravy?” Distressed, Steve turned to me and asked me to call his mother to see if she could bring some extra gravy. Thank goodness for mothers!

It wasn’t funny at the time, but over the years, it’s become one of our favorite stories. It makes us laugh every time think about it. I’m grateful for the mishaps of life. They remind us that we’re not perfect, we are flexible and we can laugh at ourselves.

Fast-forward about five years from our first Thanksgiving. This particular Thanksgiving was the first one we hosted as new parents. Our oldest daughter, now 20, was only six months old at the time. Steve and I remember waking up early to prepare everything. About an hour or so before our family and friends arrived, we commented to one another how smoothly things were going and how not stressed out we were. I suppose at that point we should have knocked on wood for good luck.

As I was preparing the table, I notice a tremendous amount of smoke coming from the kitchen. Steve yelled out, “CALL the Fire Department!” The smoke alarms went off, our daughter started crying and the cat was meowing wildly. One of the turkeys (we cooked two that year) had caught on fire, which in turn made our oven catch fire.

The Fire Department showed up quickly, but Steve had already extinguished the fire. His Boy Scout training has come in handy countless times, including that Thanksgiving! Twenty people were expecting Thanksgiving dinner and we had to continue preparing, even after the “incident.” Once the excitement subsided and the fire was extinguished, we continued cooking and airing out the house. We had to open all the windows and doors to get the smoke out. Our poor guests froze that year and had to wait a long time until the meal was ready.

But in the end, it was another wonderful Thanksgiving providing us with lots of happy memories. We were surrounded by the people we loved most, no one was hurt, we ended up getting a new stove and as a bonus, we ate smoked turkey.

Steve and I had our Thanksgiving planning meeting yesterday. We figured out who was doing what, when we’d do things and reviewed our notes from previous years. And of course, we had to retell our Thanksgiving stories and enjoy a good laugh together. Who knows what surprises will be in store this year? All I do know is that I’m very grateful to have all the people we love most coming to our home to celebrate the holiday of thanks and gratitude.

Do you have any Thanksgiving stories or tales of gratitude? Please share them.