Brief comment: This is a classic article by Paul Graham, author of Hacker and Painter. Programmers as creators of abstract systems follow Maker’s Schedule. Writing code requires a continuous block of time to think, and if work is constantly interrupted by meetings, you can’t get anything real done at the end of the day.
One reason programmers especially hate meetings is because their schedules are different from everyone else’s, and meetings can be too draining for programmers.
Schedules generally fall into two categories, let’s call them Maker’s Schedule and Manager’s Schedule. For example, the boss belongs to the Manager’s schedule, which is embodied in the to-do list, which is measured in hours every day. Sure, you can work on a project for hours if you need to, but most of the time, every hour and every hour has something different waiting for you.
With this schedule, meeting someone isn’t really a problem, you just need to find a space in your schedule and it’s booked.
Most ceos or senior managers adopt the Manager’s Schedule. But programmers or writers, who create and then output, commonly use a different kind of Schedule, Maker’s Schedule, where they tend to work on a single task for the better part of a day. You can’t write great articles or great code in an hour.
When you’re in Maker’s Schedule, meetings are a disaster. One meeting can ruin an afternoon, two blocks of time are too small to get anything going, and your mind has to think about not forgetting the meeting.
Anyway, with Manager’s Schedule, something has to be done in the next hour. The difference is just what to do. But for programmers, you have to worry about it.
Meetings are like throwing an exception to Maker, which not only lets you switch between tasks, but also changes your working mode.
Although both schedules work fine, problems arise when they meet. Managers work according to the Manager’s Schedule. If necessary, everyone has to work according to their Schedule. After all, they are the leader. But smart leaders know how to coordinate, and they know that these employees need a block of time to be productive.
Paul Graham, author of hackers and Painters, is a special case. While almost every VC he knows uses Manager’s Schedule, his company, Y Combinator, still works on Maker’s Schedule. Including Rtm and Trevor, because they’ve always been makers, and Jessica is no exception, but she’s trying to be consistent with the others.
It is not surprising that more companies operating on Maker’s Schedule may follow, just as decades ago they were able to refuse to trade in jeans for suits. So founders may resist, or at least delay, becoming managers.
So how did we use Maker’s Schedule to advise so many startups?
The answer is that the concept of office hours simulates a manager’s schedule within the framework of Maker. I set aside a few blocks of time each week to host Founders, usually at the end of my workday. I also wrote a program to ensure that meetings within a time frame could be scheduled together. That way entrepreneurs don’t interrupt me when they come by after work (unless their hours are the same as mine and they’re in the way, but they usually come with a request). As a result, a block of office time can still cover the entire day without interruption, despite the busy schedule.
Back in the ’90s, when Graham was starting his own business, he tried another way to divide his time. He started programming at dinner until 3 a.m., because it was too late to be disturbed. Then sleep until 11 a.m. and go back to work to do “business” until dinner.
In fact, he has two daily routines: Maker and Manager.
As a Manager, you can do things you don’t want to do as a Maker, such as meeting with clients or meeting people to get to know each other better. After all, it’s something you can do when you have time in your schedule, and it might even turn into an opportunity to help someone else.
Business people in Silicon Valley (and all over the world, really) have meetings all the time. If you have a Manager’s schedule, they have quite a bit on their hands. It’s common among them and has a unique way of presenting it, such as “Coffee?
But if you adopt a Maker routine, the cost of such meetings can be especially high. Let’s say everyone thinks we use Manager’s schedule, then introduce some people who think we should meet, or send us a message suggesting coffee or something. Or we go to see each other and give up half a day at work; Or we decline politely, which is likely to offend the other person.
All this time we didn’t quite understand what was going on. We took it for granted that it was either/or and that we might offend each other if we didn’t give up our arrangement. But now it’s suddenly clear to me that it’s because of two different work schedules. When people understand the conflict between these two ways of working, the problem can be solved a little bit.
For Maker, we are willing to compromise and we know that some meetings are necessary. What we appeal for is only that Manager can understand the cost of such compromise.
- Translator: Aceyclee
- Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule
- Zhihu column: Aurora Daily