Overall, I agree that time management does not work for everyone in the same way. I certainly hate Outlook yelling at me 10 times a day about doing X and attending Y. Thankfully, I am in a position where I am not obligated to live by Outlook and can choose my own system.

I wrote a super simple webapp http://untodos.com/ (mostly for myself) that is pretty much the opposite of every time/schedule management app out there. I don't care about the preciseness of the tasks, I care about the priority. Inside my mind, I can't visualize 4:15pm-5:45pm Friday next week. The only time horizons my mind intuitively understands are today, soon, and whenever. My app and now my life is designed around that principle. After years of being burdened with feeling stressed and overworked, I think I finally have a handle on my busy schedule now and I know my stress is much lower.

My biggest gripe with traditional time management method is that you lose sight of the big picture and only concentrate on the small urgencies. We forget the important due to the urgent. If writing a book is one of your life goals, where does it fit on a calendar? I know where it fits on mine, in the "whenever" section. Once a day, I go over my "today", "soon" and "whenever" sections and move things around as I deem necessary.

I feel my view of managing my time is more encompassing than compartmentalizing. I am one person, I don't want "buy groceries" on a separate list from "meet clients" because both happen within hours of each other anyway. My life is one life, why have separate types of calendars and events. I thought deeply about what actually matters to me and realized that all I care about a task is whether it is "work/chore" or "fun/relaxing." As long as I have a bunch of fun tasks interspersed between my regular chore todos, I can manage my time well.

I guess the key lesson about time management is that you have to know yourself and figure out what works best for you. For some, it's Outlook, for some it's GCal synced with iPhone using RememberTheMilk app merged with iCal feeds from your fridge. And for some like me, it's just a no-deadline, no-reminder list of tasks with varying priorities. Find what works for you and grow with it. And if something doesn't work, don't blame yourself and personalize the stress as being caused by your inefficiencies but rather seek a system that fits your personality.