A recent essay by Paul Graham found here illustrates two types of schedules that persons may run, particularly in tech-related businesses.  He defines two duties first of all, or “hats” as I would call them.  First, you have managers and second, technicians or “makers” as he calls them.  The manager will be your typical ‘business person’ with meetings running throughout the day, typically an hourly schedule.  The Maker, in a tech business, is the programmer who gets into the challenge, the task of programming, and once in the groove, is best left in the groove, not interrupted hourly for new activities.  Their schedule is often run in, say, two half-day blocks.  A meeting in the middle of a block often kills the entire block as a groove is difficult to obtain and even more difficult to maintain.  He says:

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

This is not simply with programmers but others that “make things” as Paul puts it, such as writers.  Anywhere that ‘groove’ exists in making something.  While the management can be effective with hourly shifts, the maker is not typically so.

Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager’s schedule, they’re in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.

Which brings us to Paul’s purpose for the essay:

Till recently we weren’t clear in our own minds about the source of the problem. We just took it for granted that we had to either blow our schedules or offend people. But now that I’ve realized what’s going on, perhaps there’s a third option: to write something explaining the two types of schedule. Maybe eventually, if the conflict between the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule starts to be more widely understood, it will become less of a problem.

So which are you, a manager or a maker? Would it be a good idea to switch schedule styles for more productivity? For most, a good assessment is recommended.  See how those in your company work and think about better ways to work in light of these differing hats.  Get a grasp on this, read the essay.  Some are following Paul’s methods of late night work such as Sam at Leveraging Ideas here.