This year I started timeblocking my days.
Breaking my day up into hour-long chunks and scheduling tasks to do within that time. It all started so well. Then a meeting would get scheduled in the middle of my morning and I wouldn't be able to get into any kind of significant work, because all I felt was the meeting looming.
I kept wondering why it bothered me so much to have a meeting in the middle of my morning. Then I read an article by Paul Graham on Maker Schedule, Managers Schedule and it all started to make sense.
👉 Managers live by the hour. Easily moving from one thing to the next
👉 Makers days are divided into two. Morning time and afternoon time. They need long blocks to work uninterrupted.
Ah! It all made sense. I'm a maker, not a manager. So I started to change the way I scheduled my day away from hourly blocks to just two blocks a day - morning and afternoon.
But I can't be a maker all the time, I still have to manage people. So now I also split my days between the two types:
👉 Mon/Wed - Manager days where I live by the hour
👉 Tues/Thur - Maker days where I have long uninterrupted stretches of time.
👉 Fri - A combo of both.
Now I'm even ok with the manager days because I know that I have my maker days to work in long uninterrupted stretches of time.
If you've ever felt your day derailed because of a mid morning meeting, maybe it's time to try the makers schedule.