The “Maker’s Schedule” vs the “Manager’s Schedule”

When I was reading Josh Kaufman’s “The Personal MBA“, he shared this interesting viewpoint about our calendars from Paul Graham. He said:

Paul Graham, a venture capitalist, programmer, and essayist, calls this batching strategy “Maker’s Schedule/Manager’s Schedule.” If you’re trying to create something, the worst thing you can possibly do is to try to fit creative tasks in between administrative tasks—context switching will kill your productivity. The “Maker’s Schedule” consists of large blocks of uninterrupted time; the “Manager’s Schedule” is broken up into many small chunks for meetings. Both schedules serve different purposes—just don’t try to combine them if your goal is to get useful work done.

My initial reading was that most of us should work to have a “Maker’s Schedule” so we don’t kill our productivity, and perhaps that’s true, but there are big exceptions.

It reminded me of someone I worked with years ago when he was a project manager. He was a great guy and worked hard, but he tried to have a “Maker’s Schedule” and that just didn’t work for his kind of role. If you’re a project manager, you have to live by more of a “Manager’s Schedule”, where context switching IS the role. Ultimately, it led to him moving on to a different company (and a very different role) where a “Maker’s Schedule” was the proper fit for what he did.

This also has me thinking about my schedule and role. My schedule undoubtedly should be a “Maker’s Schedule” at this point, but it’s still a “Manager’s Schedule” for the most part. It’s something I need to work on, and this simple framework is helping me push it forward.

What kind of schedule do you have? Is it the right one for what you do?