Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule. An essay by Paul Graham, July 2009.

Why meetings feel different

Why do programmers dislike meetings so much? Because they run on a different kind of schedule, and on it, meetings cost more.

The manager's schedule

The manager's schedule is the old appointment book: each day cut into one-hour slots, and each hour, something new.

Want to meet someone? You just find a free hour and put them in it. Done.

Most powerful people work this way. Graham calls it the schedule of command.

The maker's schedule

Makers, like programmers and writers, work differently. They prefer the maker's schedule: time in chunks of half a day or more.

Why so long? Hard work takes a while to load into your head. In one hour, you've barely started before it's over.

One meeting, a whole afternoon

So for a maker, a meeting is a disaster. One meeting can wreck a whole afternoon.

It cuts the afternoon in two, and neither piece is long enough for anything hard.

And you have to remember to go. A manager barely notices, since something is always next. A maker carries it around all afternoon.

Like throwing an exception

Graham has an analogy for programmers: “having a meeting is like throwing an exception.”

It doesn't just swap one task for another. It knocks you out of the mode you were working in.

The meeting's shadow

It gets worse. With a meeting waiting in the afternoon, you're less inclined to take on anything ambitious that morning.

A free day lifts your spirits. A day with a meeting in it lowers them, a little.

And ambitious work sits near the limit of what you can do. A small drop in morale is enough to kill it.

When the two schedules meet

Each schedule works fine on its own. The trouble starts when they meet.

Bosses usually run on the manager's schedule, so they can pull everyone onto their rhythm.

The smart ones hold back when they know their people need long stretches of time.

How YC copes

Y Combinator is unusual: unlike nearly every investor, its partners run on the maker's schedule.

To meet founders anyway: office hours at the end of the day. Graham's signup program packs every slot at the end.

In busy weeks, office hours can make the day shorter. But they never break it in two.

In the Viaweb days he went further: program from dinner till about 3am, when no one could interrupt, then business stuff until dinner. Two workdays, every day.

Speculative meetings

On the manager's schedule you can afford speculative meetings: meeting someone just to get to know them. Empty slot? Why not.

They're so common there's a stock phrase for proposing one: let's grab coffee.

For a maker, that coffee costs half a day.

So makers get stuck: meet and lose half a day's work, or say no and risk offending someone.

The third option

Graham's way out: write something that explains the two schedules, so the conflict gets understood. This essay is that something.

Makers will compromise. They know some meetings are necessary. All they ask is that managers understand the cost.

In short

Managers use time in one-hour units. A meeting costs them an hour.

Makers use time in half-day units. One meeting can cost the whole half.

YC's fix: put meetings at the end of the day, all together.

And if you're on the manager's schedule: understand the cost.

The original is short, and better than this. Read it: paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html