Time management is a skill that every single person will never stop learning. Just like communication, time management is a skill that we will only get better at, but will never be completely amazing at doing. There are some communication exemptions, for example I believe that Randy Pausch is one of the best communicators I have ever listened to, but that’s another subject.

Managing every single minute of your life is hard. Especially for someone who is creative. I have always believed that creative individuals need time to reflect, recognize, and cultivate new idea’s for their next adventure. I was never totally certain about this theory until it was basically confirmed to me by an employer (Slight nudge to Andy Sernovitz of GasPedal).

For an individual who is so driven, much like myself (no ego-stroke there), I find it extremely hard to find time to wind-down. I have recently found it even harder to do the things I love, like writing posts on this Web site. I find it difficult to keep up friendships, or relationships. All of which I find way too valuable to loose because of money. In these cases, I find myself scheduling time to not do anything, scheduling time to have “free time.” I find that to be funny and a little ironic in ways.

Useful time management tools

At this point I got so busy that I had to hire a personal time management specialist (a very nice name for secretary), but it was quite easy since all three of the below products are fairly easy to use. I must clarify that I only use Basecamp and iCalendar on a personal basis.

Central Desktop - A really great, customizable Web application.

Basecamp - The very popular 37signals product, I mainly use this for my own clients and projects.

iCalendar - Perfect for all user types, easy to use and a very simple way to manage time and dates.

Onto some of the fun parts of time management

I have now had two very influential people in my life tell me how to “wind-down” and I think it’s quite funny. My economics teacher in school used to tell us that the best way to get through a very productive work-week was to have a mid-week party. He used to tell us, “invite your friends over on Tuesday nights and have a wine party.” Basically telling us to schedule time to get work out of your mind. For someone like myself, it’s extremely difficult. I cannot stop thinking about work, future projects, or how much I should be doing at that moment.

Quick and helpful ways to schedule your life:

• Schedule Sunday evenings or nights to answer fan e-mails or send positive notes to designers and friends
• Schedule time to do absolutely nothing (or just to have some “free time”), disconnect yourself from the internet - no phones, computers, PDA’s, nothing
• Do something you enjoy that clears your mind - try Golfing, that works for me!
• Have a mid-week break, if you are working through the weekends, make sure on Thursdays you give yourself a day to concentrate on regenerating your creativity
• Communicate as best as possible your schedule, if you have a client or employer in your lap right now - be sure they clearly understand how busy you are (but try and do this in the nicest way possible, be sure you include that they are important to you)

Time management has been discussed over and over. At SEED 3 conference Gary Vaynerchuk explained that he doesn’t have enough time to answer fan e-mails and feels as though he never stops working. It’s a continuous road that does have pay-offs, you just have to stop for a moment and make sure you enjoy them. You can also tell that time management is such a very popular trouble for many individuals just by analyzing the amount of Web applications available for time management.

Now, lets start discussing how each one of you manages your time. How do you do it? Do you have a mid-week party? Do you schedule time to answer e-mails on weekends? Do you schedule time to do absolutely nothing? What has seemed to work best for you? Remember, the more you explain, the more others can learn!