I was recently taking a look at my schedule and making sure to adjust any areas that could use some work. I’m always trying to improve myself, make sure I’m being as productive as I can be, and benchmark myself for optimization. Programming is different than scheduling other activities though, and while I knew this, I find it really well articulated in the concept of the Maker’s schedule vs. the Manager’s schedule. Someone recently sent me an article on the idea, and it’s so true!
When I was the Director of Marketing at my last company, I had to utilize both schedules. Usually throughout the week, I had to keep a manager’s schedule. Meetings with the company president were marked on my calendar here, meetings with the heads of other departments there, calls and meetings with manufacturers and our sales team scattered throughout. Yet, on days where I miraculously had no meetings, or at the very least less meetings, I was able to keep a Maker’s schedule. It was often Friday when business seemed to slow down a bit, I would go into my creator mind and come up with content and ideas. The manager’s schedule allowed me to stay organized, work with others, and make decisions, but it was the maker’s schedule that allowed me to create.
Sometimes I find myself wanting to use my manager’s schedule to manage myself throughout the day now, but it doesn’t seem to work as well as a computer programmer. Programming is about creation, about building something incredible. But making anything significant requires time, and lots of it. When I’m writing a program, I really need focused, uninterrupted coding and debugging time. It takes truly delving into the builder mindset and spending large amounts of time in the flow.
Understanding the difference in mindsets between the two really does help you understand what you need as a manager or as a creator to have the most success. If managers and computer programmers can understand each other’s needs, it makes for a clearly superior work environment. Likewise, knowing what kind of schedule you need to keep for yourself, it’s much easier to be more successful yourself.
The original article I was sent: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html