🗓️Maker and manager time

Two ways of using a day, from Paul Graham's essay 📰 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule, which I re-read every January.

• Manager time is cut into hours. A meeting is a matter of finding a free slot, and it costs one slot.
• Maker time needs units of half a day at least. A meeting in the middle of an afternoon does not cost an hour. It breaks the afternoon into two pieces, each too short to start anything hard.

The cost is invisible to the person who sends the invitation, because on their schedule it really was one hour.

Example from my week: I am both, on different days. Tuesday to Thursday in the office is manager time and I do not fight it. Monday and Friday mornings at home are for specs and the newsletter, and since 20 January the calendar says so: 📜 No meetings on Monday and Friday mornings. It holds about 70 percent of the time.

Often confused with: deep work as a personality trait. This is about the shape of the calendar, not about discipline.

Notes: 📖 Graham on maker and manager time. Claim: 💎 Makers need half days and managers need hours.