Maker or Manager

It’s been a really rainy Friday. How was your day?

My morning started off with 2 back to back meetings, which prevented me from heading out to dive into the day’s tasks at a cafe until later. Most of my Fridays are for less calls and more deep work and creating, or in-person connections.

Why am I telling you this?

A single meeting can quietly hijack your entire day.
Not because it’s long. Because of how your brain works.

This didn’t happen to me today, but it’s this week’s topic. Let’s jump in.

Way back in 2009, I remember reading an essay by Paul Graham (co-founder of Y Combinator) called “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule”.  

I remember even what the basic HTML website looked like with the article years ago, and it really resonated. I know fellow founders and creatives, along with engineers and writers, to name a few, who also liked it because it names something many feel but don’t articulate.

While Paul’s background is in tech startups and therefore product, it can (and has) definitely been adapted to others.

So what’s it all about?

There are two fundamentally different ways time gets structured.
And most friction at work happens when they collide.

Let’s look at each of them.

The manager schedule

The manager’s day is divided into one-hour blocks.

Meetings fit neatly inside these containers. Decisions get made. Updates get shared. Calendars are optimized for coordination.

If you operate this way, a 30-minute meeting costs 30 minutes.
No big deal, your day was already segmented.

The maker schedule

Makers in here are anyone from writers, designers, video editors, strategists, developers, and even researchers. Or founders who are building something from scratch.

We need long, uninterrupted stretches of time — ideally half-days — to enter deep focus.

You don’t produce meaningful work in 30 minutes… you barely get started.

So when a meeting lands at 2:00 pm, it doesn’t just consume 30 minutes. It splits the day into two fragments that can be too small for deep work.

The insight from Graham’s essay on this: If you know you have a meeting at 2:00, you often won’t start something ambitious at 11:00. Why begin a complex task you’ll have to abandon halfway through?

That single meeting doesn’t just take time, it erodes focus. It shrinks the size of what you’re willing to attempt that day. That’s a big cost.

That’s how Atman, who drew this diagram, summed it up.

Why this matters more now

Everything is hyper-scheduled. Calendly links are everywhere. Slack notifications are going off all day. Quick calls and syncs. Standing weekly check-ins that multiply over time.

Without realizing it, many builders slowly drift into manager-mode calendars.

You might feel busy, even responsive and in-demand — but you’re no longer building.

And if you’re a founder, creative, or knowledge worker, that’s risky.

Because your leverage doesn’t come from attending meetings.
It comes from thinking clearly and producing valuable work.

Different seasons require different modes

It’s not binary, though. There are seasons. Here’s how I break it down:

• Explore mode — where you’re researching, testing, experimenting. You need white space. Curiosity. Fewer interruptions.

• Build mode — where you’re producing. Writing the book. Designing the deck. Developing the product. This demands long, protected blocks.

• Maintain mode — where you’re optimizing, responding, refining. This can tolerate more fragmentation.

The problem is when you’re in build mode but living inside a maintain-mode calendar.

That mismatch creates frustration, not because you’re unproductive — but because your environment is misaligned with your task.

What adopting a maker mindset looks like

This year, I’ve been intentionally leaning into a maker mindset.

Not because meetings don’t matter, but because building matters more.

• Writing my book for young people alongside fellow maker Daniel Lewis.

• Developing new talks and workshops.

• Planning the Together for Impact Summit this fall.

• Experimenting with Maker Matcha as a brand and experience.

• And building out a studio, which you’ll hear more about soon.

None of that happens in 45-minute windows between Zoom calls.

It requires depth, and that depth requires defence.

That doesn’t mean eliminating collaboration, though. That’s still big for me. It means designing your week so collaboration doesn’t cannibalize creation.

A practical shift

One simple strategy from Graham’s logic: Batch meetings at the edges of your day, or on specific days entirely. I know a few founders and creators who do this well (I’ve even had meeting invites automatically declined by their calendar, because I invited them to a Friday call).

Compress coordination. Protect creation.

When meetings are clustered, they take up space.
When they’re scattered, they fracture it.

If you’ve been feeling like your days are full, but your work isn’t moving forward, this might be the missing variable.

It’s about structuring time according to the type of work you’re actually doing.

Reflect and let me know

Are you living on a manager calendar, while expecting maker-level output from yourself
What would it look like to redesign just one day next week?

NEW CONTENT

A few short videos for you to watch

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Tuesday’s panel at DX3