Activities on Organizational Behavior & Self-Motivation

Organization and motivation skills start at a young age. If you find yourself struggling against constant procrastination or the inability to focus, you may have an attention deficit disorder. However, if you want to be organized but do not possess the motivation, there are ways to teach yourself these values. In addition, you can help your kids get on a path towards understanding how organization skills improve the quality of life and provide motivation for future goals.

Kids start learning organization and self-motivation when asked to do chores, like cleaning up a playroom or doing the dishes after dinner. Kids may learn motivation from seeing how a messy room disrupts play activities, for example, being unable to find a certain toy. As a parent, show your child a way to organize his toys and other items by sorting. Instruct your child to find items of the same color, shape or brand to place in a chest or storage container. Allow him decide what to pick up and put away, helping him arrange them in the storage container and figure out what should go with what. Offer an ice cream treat after your child finishes sorting his playroom.

Many games and sports are associated with organization skills, such as the sport of stacking. Sport stacking involves setting up a pyramid of cups on a time limit. Set up a family tournament to practice this organizational skill with plastic cups. Teenagers tend to have issues keeping a room clean, but redecorating a room is an activity that you can do with your teenager while finding ways to organize all of his stuff. For example, draw up a plan for a bedroom with your teenager that includes new shelves, a desk, a hamper, a bookcase and containers. As you repaint and remodel the room, put items away in a designated place. Once finished, your teen gets a brand new room and finds a new appreciation for keeping clothes off the floor.

Other activities include an organizational game for finding solutions to common problems that workers face with organization at the office. Called Rhetor-Oh!, it is an advanced game that uses the same techniques as card games for kids and is played with card decks you create yourself from flash cards. The game features two players: the researcher and worker. The researcher has two types of cards. One represents challenges that a worker faces, whether scheduling a meeting or finishing a work assignment. The other deck represents reasons that get in the way of meeting these challenges, such as a car breaking down or falling sick. You can create the challenges and reasons to meet your needs. The worker also has two decks, one that represents tools and the other that represents people. The tools deck includes cards for email, website, cellphone and word processing programs. People include workers around the office, such as a boss, co-worker or technician. The researcher plays a challenge and contingency card that conjures up a situation that the worker must face with his different cards, sorting the challenges by priority. At the end, the worker and researcher players discuss different methods to organize the challenges and find solutions to problems that may arise.

One way to gain self-motivation is by reading the stories of successful men and women, such as an Olympic athlete or famous artist. These stories often include hardships that were met and overcome, which may relate to a particular block that is holding you back from completing your goals. If you can, name five small goals to start with, make a list and cross off each of your goals when completed. One behavioral tip is to count to five when procrastinating about a specific goal. Once you reach five, you must start working. Complete this trick a few times to implant the idea that you cannot procrastinate after you reach the number five. Once you complete a list of goals, offer a reward to yourself and celebrate your accomplishments to make yourself want to achieve more.