Paul Graham’s Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to anybody who’s ever been inexplicably frustrated by a kind-hearted coworker interrupting them, or felt like an ass for turning down a request to grab a 20 minute coffee with an acquiantance.

It meant a lot because it explained the frustration. It justified (as much as can be justified) the ass-like behavior. And it did so by drawing a clean line between people who need completely interruption-free schedules (makers) and those who context switch from one block of work to the next (managers).

Truth is, though, that in the startup world we’ll be forced to straddle that line. For many makers and managers, the separation won’t be so clean. Understanding how to navigate a hybrid maker-manager’s schedule can be critical for personal and product success.

Ask a maker and a manager for something that’ll only take twenty minutes out of each of their days (easy part). Then peer into their souls (slightly harder part) and watch the decision they’re trying to make.

This email was sent to both Ben the manager and Ben the maker,
who are two completely different people. For science.

Ben the manager’s thoughts after receiving this email: this person seems really interesting and nice. Would it be possible to fit this into any of my free time slots? Hmm.

Ben the maker’s thoughts after receiving the same email: this person seems really interesting and nice. Should I sacrifice half of a day’s productivity by meeting them or be a rude ass by saying no? Harumph.

Ok, cool. This explained a lot. For years, I had been rude to people I love without understanding why (I’m still rude but at least I know why). I thought they were just refusing to see how important a lack of interruption was to me…even when their request only took a measly 30 minutes out of an otherwise clear schedule. I was a maker! And not everybody intuitively understood the implications! I emailed the article to my mom and my girlfriend and apologized for snapping in the past.

Fast forward to today. By fate or free will or some sort of sick cosmic joke, I’ve spent the last 5 years trying to become a good manager. Trying to make myself always interruptable, always focused on empowering others, always thinking twice before going off on my lonesome to build something. Like many makers breaking managerial, I’ve been challenged. And at the end of the day, most challenges for a maker-turned-manager boil down to the loss of a maker’s schedule.

Far as I can tell, there are three doors to choose from if you’re a maker becoming a manager:

Door #1: Embrace it. Completely give up the maker’s schedule and the idea that you need to personally make to be valuable. Know, deep down in your heart, that all of your time is now best spent empowering others. I know plenty of people who have been able to do this, and I admire them greatly.

Door #2: Flit between the two. Your schedule is now maker-manager. Convince yourself that it’s more important to help somebody else than to build on your own (cuz it is), but still try to build because that’s what you love. I’ve been peering behind this door for quite a while now. The path is rife with confusion. You simultaneously value yourself by what you personally get done and your willingness to not get things done while empowering others. That’s inconsistent and possibly frustrating, but not necessarily wrong or unnavigable.

Door #3: Be the mythical perfect maker-manager. This door only exists in my dreams. If somebody can tell me more about finding time to reach peak creativity while also being an always-available and aware manager, consider this blog post my way of begging.

Door #1 doesn’t work for me. I have trouble sleeping if I haven’t personally created in some way, even if it’s a tiny bug fix or blog post. I cannot manage well if I become too disconnected from the product. These may be managerial limitations of mine, but so be it. It’s in my bones. I applaud those who open this door, but I’m most at home…most myself…when finding a balance between maker and manager.

And since I seem to have lost the keys for Door #3, I’m gonna share survival tips for those passing through #2.

---

A Maker-Manager’s Survival Tips

Grumpy like me when the scales start tipping past 90% manager?

1. There is a difference between being willing to be interrupted at any time and letting your schedule be entirely controlled by others.

It’s taken me years to start to understand this. Always saying yes to, “Hey Ben, I need some help” is not the same as always saying yes to, “Can we talk at 3pm on Thursday?” You can’t dismiss the former and still call yourself a great manager. You can reschedule the latter for a different day and still be great.

You can take control of your schedule and preemptively block out time for making. I’ve recently gotten better at this (only took a few years). It’s transformed my schedule from this:

…into this:

.

I’m still 100% interruptable during maker hours. I’ll still drop everything if anybody else on the team needs something from me to be more productive. But I’ve preemptively stopped scheduled 1:1s, recruiting interviews, product meetings, and anything else that would’ve shocked me out of the coding zone for a precious bit each week.

2. There is a difference between 4 free hours at the start of my day and 4 free hours at the end of my day.

Any maker hours I schedule are deliberately pressed up against the end of the day.

Think about how long it’ll take to make whatever it is you’re aching to make next. Say you estimate 3 hours. What are the odds it’ll take exactly 3 hours? 4 hours? How about 5 or 6? If things go very wrong, could it possibly take a week? There’s a distribution of possible time needed, and while it’d be no shock if that 3 hour task took 6 hours, there’s no way it’ll take 0 hours. The distribution is biased in favor of being late. While rare cases may require a week, no case can take a negative week. This is a big reason why software is late so often and being early is a rarity. But that’s another blog post. As my dad used to say, “Everything takes longer than you think.”

It’s also a big reason why I need a wide open schedule for the rest of the day to truly get in the zone. If things go wrong, I might need that extra hour or two to finish up. If I know, in the back of my head, that my block of time definitely ends in four hours…I’ll struggle to slip into the zone.

Call it a weakness. I need to look out over my day’s schedule and get the same feeling I get when I look at pictures of an infinite pool. Endless possibility. Complete silence from the piece of my brain that pipes up to ask if it’s time for that meeting. Freedom to, if I wanted, slip into focus and find myself surprised that the clock says 11pm.

3. Keep a list of wins waiting to happen so you don’t have to think when a little bit of maker time rolls around.

This is my own personal list of things I can probably accomplish in ~half a day. It’s not our bug list, it’s not upcoming critical features. It’s a secret buffet of ready-made maker meals for any time I start getting the shakes.

4. Organize and take full advantage of fixits and hackathons.

When one of our special dev events rolls around, I burn my managerial hat. Judge me if you want, but during fixit days or hackathons I completely disappear in a cave of code and suffer no shame. I prep beforehand so I can hit the ground running. My last fairly significant contribution to the codebase was during our healthy hackathon, and I still happily milk that memory when I need to remind myself of personal creations.

Tuesday’s the next Khan Academy fixit, and I already can’t wait to make. It can be difficult to find the groove as a maker-manager, but with a team like Khan Academy’s, it sure is sweet when you do.

If you have other tips, I’m dying to hear ‘em.