(Author: Josh Cearbaugh, Todd’s son-in-law)

How’s your memory? Can you recall the thoughts, emotions, reactions of family or friends, or even subtle prayers from earlier today?  How about yesterday, or last week?  What about the warm feeling of your toes thawing after playing outside in a cold winter day five years ago?  Unless you have a memory like Brad Williams, there’s a good chance you won’t recall the minute details of life as you lived it.

Memory Versus Journaling

When Todd, my father-in-law, asked me to write a post for the Little Things Matter blog I asked myself this question.  “What is the one lesson from my life that would contribute the most to the LTM community”.   My answer to that question was simple, “give them the best gift possible”.   Since we’re not all blessed with the ability to capture the details of life like Brad Williams, one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is journaling.  Keeping a journal has benefits that far surpass the time that you take to write down what’s happening…read more

Throughout my career I can recall countless periods of time when I was overwhelmed and stressed out. As I reflect back on many of these periods, they were during seasons of great growth in my career.

While sustained stress is not good for you, if you are not experiencing any stress at all, it’s likely you’re not growing. Think about it. Being comfortable never leads to growth.

In this lesson I will share with you the process I go through when I am stressed out and overwhelmed…read more

If you want to achieve more in your life, both personally and professionally, it is absolutely critical that you focus on using your time in the most productive way possible.

On Feb 11^th I wrote a post titled, Learn to Control Interruptions In my world, controlling interruptions is imperative as interruptions divert my attention and prevent me from getting my responsibilities completed in the time I have allocated. This is why I seldom answer unscheduled calls…read more

For the past 29 years I have been a student of time management and know that it has been one of the major keys to my success an entrepreneur. I consistently look at how I can be more productive with my time. In fact, there is not a workday that goes by that I am not focused on maximizing how my time is spent.

Being productive with my time is part of my DNA and plays an important role in my every day decisions. Today, I want to teach you a simple tip to be more productive, achieve greater success and enjoy a better quality of life….read more

One of the most basic fundamentals of good time management is to focus on one thing at a time. I read an article a while back that said every time you allow an interruption you lose ten minutes of productivity. One could argue whether ten minutes is an accurate number, but regardless, productive and successful people control interruptions.

If you’re interrupted while working on a task, not only is the interruption itself often a waste of time, but when you resume your work, it takes time to gather your thoughts and return to your original state of focus before the interruption occurred.

If you value your time and want to improve your time management skills, here are four tips to assist you in avoiding interruptions:

1. Turn off ALL notifications on your computer. This includes everything from the social media sites to your e-mail program. Instead, block out windows of times to return e-mails and visit your social media sites.

In my case, I check e-mails two to three times a day and check my social media sites one to two times a day. When I see people consistently responding within minutes to my non-urgent e-mails, it indicates to me that either they have poor time management skills or they don’t have anything productive going on in their lives….. read more

One of the most important keys to personal and professional success lies in how you spend your time. Each day contains twenty-four hours but how we spend those hours is what separates people who enjoy lives of happiness, fulfillment and success from those who experience lives filled with frustration, disappointment, and often failure.

Practicing good time management will not only have a tremendous impact on success in your career but it will also have a powerful effect on your entire life.

In order for you to be an effective time manager, you must first have the desire to be more productive with your time. It must be something that is important to you or you won’t take the steps required to improve your time management skills.

Keep a Prioritized Daily “To-Do List”

Keeping a prioritized daily To-Do list is my top time management tip and I believe my consistent use of such a list has played a significant role in my success. My daily To-Do list is my prioritized daily action plan. It has and continues to be my plan for how I will spend my time to accomplish those things that are important to me….. read more