Any dude that’s a real skier will talk about powder days as their best days ever after major life events like their wedding, birth of their children and graduations.

As a Skier myself, I have faced many situations caused by powder days, some extremely satisfying and some that test the core parts of my life such as my marriage and my job. I recall vividly an incredible Thursday powder day at Vail a few years ago with my brother, as we rolled into the Village I turned on my phone to see 10 voicemails, our servers were down and I was no where to be found, uh oh.

Over the years powder days have been harder and harder to swing. My heart is in it, but my schedule says that meeting is too important to miss or that look in my wife’s eye tells me it’s time for me to watch the baby while she sleeps in.

All of this got me thinking about powder days as a gauge to the control you have over your life and business. If I called you right now and said “Dude, A-Basin is getting dumped on, let’s hit it tomorrow!” Could you?

I think getting to the point in your life where you have this freedom is an amazing goal. You used to have it, but now responsibility has crept up on you. Work-Life Balance is all about being an incredibly responsible, hard working, successfully, total Bad-Ass that can sneak away and grab a powder day.

Here are 3 suggestions for helping you ditch work and ski pow:

1. Have you put process in place to help you manage fires in your daily life? Hopefully Yes, you need to be in a situation where the big decisions that cause tons of stress are made thoughtfully and slowly. Don’t be the guy that has to react to every single thing throughout the day. There is always a punching bag like this in every company, no matter how big or small, you need to work hard to not be that guy.

2. Does your company culture thrive on who is in the office when? I just heard Jason Fried of 37 Signals talk about this in a recent podcast about Remake, “Every office has the asshole that waits until everyone leaves then leaves 5 minutes later.” Work very hard and never let face time bother you, it has no value to your career and you just have to let it go.

3. Talk to your Boss with total transparency about this. “You know I love to ski, and this winter I would like to take a few days off, only when it is dumping snow in the mountains, to ski for the day. I will never let this affect my work and have worked hard so that everyone has me covered. I will always email the night before to key team members and check my phone throughout the day.” I have learned in my professional and personal relationships that sometimes if you want something you just have to ask, and be ready to work hard for it. When your boss says “Thanks for being so transparent with me, I think that’s a great idea.” it also means “I am granting you this freedom and you have to work really hard and not screw up to keep it.” Asking your Boss to take powder days can only be asked once, no second chances.

I write this post mainly as a motivation to myself. I am just as guilty of being sucked into responsibility as the next guy.

Good Luck, and Bon Hiver.

One of my hobbies is studying how to be more productive.  I have read David Allen’s GTD books, listen to 43 Folders podcast, thirst after Inbox Zero and talk to people about how they manage their time.

Below are some things I’ve learned.

Plan your year in context

I learned this from Brad Feld who calls this “The Rhythms of his Life“.  Think of your time in segments: Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Day.  Create a routine for each of these segments that you follow such as taking a vacation each quarter, wake up at the same time each day, etc.

Understand how your spend your time each day

I am using a utility called RescueTime that runs in the background and analyzes the applications you have open.  When you are away from your computer RescueTime asks you “What have you been doing?”.  You can view reports of “Time Wasted” and “Producive Time”.  I don’t run RescueTime everyday, just every once in a while to help me stay on track.  It’s amazing how much time I waste everyday!

This is a graph showing my day today.  I woke up at 5am for my Morning Think time but my daughter woke up as well so I spent my morning with her.  As you can see I took a break around lunchtime and mid-day is when I am interrupted the most with random questions and water cooler conversation.

Trust your System

I learned this from David Allen’s GTD books.  I use Things as my ToDo list.  Anytime anyone says anything that I need to follow up on I dump it into my Inbox on Things.  Each week I have my “Weekly Review” to organize this list.  The amount of stuff that I procrastinate on or drop has been reduced dramatically by using Things.

The above shows the Inbox view in my Things app.  Every task, usually life stuff but some work stuff, I dump into the Inbox for “processing” later.

Morning Think

I have written about my Morning Think Time on this blog previously.  A few days a week I try and wakeup at 5am.  For about 2 hours I sip coffee and do whatever I want, usually read or research on my laptop sitting in my robe.  This time is extremely productive and helps me think about the big picture, read or just knock off small tasks.

What’s Next?

2009 has been a transformative year for me as I’ve become extremly productive following the above tactics.  My goals in 2010 are to be more productive on the bigger things in my life now that I have the day to day figured out.

Recently we restructured our teams at The Fuel Team and I found myself not sitting with the Dev Team for the first time in my career.  I was hesitant at first but the physical move has created a new headspace for me to operate in.  Our Dev Team cranks hard, everyday.  They work on big features, production work, design work, work within multiple languages and platforms and find time to have a ton of fun as well.  Being separated from this has allowed me to slow down my pace, ween myself off the high that comes from cranking out work, and think hard about our products, product roadmap and software development approach.  It’s funny how the grass is always greener.  I always wished for more time to think about our products, now that I have it, I find myself longing to program….trying to learn Rails and Objective C in my spare time!

I was searching for a new fitness goal and decided to run, at least a mile or so, everyday in August. I completed my goal and encourage others to give it a try. Below is a list of Pros and Cons from my experience:

Pros:

• feeling healthy on a daily basis
• getting more fresh air than normal
• having something interesting to talk about
• lost 3 lbs
• bought new running shoes
• plowed through some of those podcasts I wished I had more time to listen to

Cons:

• legs, especially my knees, were sore a few days and I knew I should’ve rested but instead I ran
• my normal runs became shorter (averaging 2.5 miles), no long runs in August

This challenge was a great lesson in “glass 1/2 empty, glass 1/2 full” thinking.  You have to approach everyday with the right attitude.  Either it’s “This sucks, I am so busy and there is no way I can go for a run” or this “I’m sorry, I can’t meet you for drinks after work.  I am trying to run everyday in August and have to get my run in, you understand right?”

I recommend this challenge for anyone, runner or non-runner.  It’s a great way to turn just another normal month into something more.

We had a baby in January and I’ve been procrastinating setting up her 529 plan.

“A 529 Plan is an education savings plan operated by a state or educational institution designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs. It is named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code which created these types of savings plans in 1996.”

Source: savingforcollege.com

I’ve skimmed articles and listened to podcasts about the subject, here are some highlights:

1. You have to research and choose a State offered 529 Plan

I chose Colorado’s 529 Plan, my home state, mainly because I just love Colorado..and I wanted the tax benefits their 529 Plan gave me for being a resident. I then choose the Direct Portfolio Savings Plan because it was managed by Vanguard and I have an IRA with them.

2. Once you’ve decided on a 529 Plan, you have to signup and choose options

The Direct Portfolio Savings Plan 529 Plan that I chose offered 4 options, each based on level of risk. Of course, I have no idea what I’m doing so I just choose the first option, “Age-based”, it adjusts your level of risk over time beginning at high risk and moving to low risk as it gets closer to the beginning of college. This is the option the Obama’s chose for their kids.

3. Now you can start contributing

The maximum the 529 Plan can have in it is $280,000. You can contribute whatever you want each year until you reach that maximum.

4. When you are ready to pull money out:

Distributions from the Plan that go towards tuition costs come out tax-free. This makes sense because the money has already been taxed when it goes in but then comes out without being taxed. So, you are not double taxed on this money or it’s gains by the IRS. Read this FAQ page for more info

I also enjoyed listening to Marketplace’s Story on choosing 529 Plans.