Maker vs. Manager: How To Schedule For Your Productivity Style
Makers are individual contributors with a specific skillset: designers, developers, writers, etc. Managers coordinate projects, manage teams, develop their direct reports, and make sure their team is moving forward.
Each of these distinct designations require a different type of schedule. Optimizing for the wrong schedule can mean an annoying day of unending meetings when you really need to be heads down, or a lonely day trying to do work when really you need to be connecting with others on your team.
The maker’s schedule is comprised of long stretches of uninterrupted time. I repeat:
- Long: You should be able to block out however much time you need to get “in the zone.” Research shows it takes as long as 30 minutes for makers to hit that sweet spot of flow where things really start to happen.
- Uninterrupted: This is the key. No Slack…really, no Slack. No phone notifications. Nothing but the sheer pleasure of a cup of coffee and an empty screen.
- Stretches: You may need more than one in a day. For some people the key is something like the Pomodoro technique which drives you through multiple short stretches of time delegated to certain tasks.