Creator's schedule and manager's schedule

Text: Paul Graham; original article; translated: Wang Kai; School: Zhang Liang

One of the reasons why programmers hate meetings is that their schedules are different from those of others. Meetings consume more resources than ordinary people.

There are two kinds of schedules. I call them managers and creators. The manager's schedule belongs to the boss. It is embodied in the traditional notebook, which is measured in hours every day. If needed, you can complete a job for several hours in a row, but by default, there are different things waiting for you every hour.

If the schedule is so arranged, meeting someone is not a problem. You only need to find an empty archive in the Schedule, and make a reservation.

Most big figures use the manager's schedule. This is the commander's schedule. But programmers, writers, and other people who create things, generally use another schedule. They tend to spend at least half a day. You can't write any good articles or code in an hour. Just starting.

When you are on the Creator's agenda, meetings are like a disaster. A meeting will ruin the entire afternoon: the time spent in two paragraphs is so trivial that it cannot push forward any things that need to be done. Besides, you have to go to the appointment. For those who follow the manager's schedule, this is not a problem. There is always something else to do in the next hour; the only problem is what to do. But if there are people on the Creator's schedule, they have to remember.

For those who follow the Creator's schedule, meetings are like throw an exception. They not only allow you to switch between tasks, but also change your working mode.

I found that meetings sometimes affect the whole day. A meeting usually consumes at least half a day-either in the morning or in the afternoon. In addition, there are often chain reactions. If you know that the afternoon is about to take off, it is unlikely that I will start doing something with ambition in the morning. This may seem emotional, but if you are also a creator, think about it or not. When you think that this whole day can be used for work, and no one will bother you, won't you be in high spirits? Well, that means the opposite situation will negatively affect your mood. Ambitious projects usually reach the limit of your ability, and the loss of morale is enough to let it go.

The two calendar types are different. The problem arises when we encounter each other. Since many big figures are arranged on the manager's schedule, if needed, everyone needs to resonate on their frequency. But more intelligent people will restrain themselves, if they know that the people who sell their lives need a lot of time to work.

Our situation is special. Almost all investors, including all vc I know, are managers on schedule. However, Y Combinator works according to the Creator's schedule. Both RTM and Trevor and me are like this, because we have always been creators, and Jessica is no exception, mostly because she wants to be consistent with us.

If there are more companies like us, it's not surprising. Just as they were able to refuse to change jeans into suits decades ago, I suspect that the founding people may gradually be able to resist or at least postpone the shift to managers.

How do we suggest many new companies adopt the agenda of creators? Assume the manager's schedule in the framework of the creator with the classic concept of office time. Every week, I will set aside a few large pieces of time to receive our investors. This part of time is at the end of my working day. I wrote a program to ensure that meetings within a time range can be arranged together. Because entrepreneurs visit at the end of their work, they will not interrupt me (unless their work time is the same as mine, our meetings may impede their work, but they will always come here ). During busy hours, the office hours are usually full for a whole day, but no one has ever bothered me.

In the 1990 s, when we started our business, I tried another time division trick. I start programming from dinner every day until, because no one can disturb me at night. Then I slept until noon and went to work to do what I call "business" until dinner. I never thought about it, but in fact I have two working days every day: one is a manager and the other is a creator.

On the manager's schedule, you can do what the creators don't want to do on their schedules: You can meet someone with no destination. You can gather with others only to enhance mutual understanding. If there is a gap in the Schedule, why not? This may turn into an opportunity for you to help others.

Business people in Silicon Valley (in this case, the world is actually the same) always have a lack of objective meetings. If you have a manager's schedule, they will be quite idle. This is common among them, so they have a unique language to suggest: for example, if you want to "have a cup of coffee .」

But if you follow the agenda of the creator, the cost of such a meeting is terrible. We seem to be bundling up. Everyone assumes that, like other investors, we are using the Manager's schedule. So they introduced us to people they thought we should meet, or sent us an email asking for a cup of coffee. At this time, we have two options, but none of them are the top ones: Let's go to the meeting and give up half a day's work; or we may offend each other if we try to refuse to meet each other.

We have not yet understood the source of the problem until recently. We assume that we have to offend others without giving up the original arrangement. But now I understand what is going on. Maybe there is a third option: write something to explain two different calendars. If the conflicts between the two begin to be widely understood, the final problem may be solved slightly.

Those on the agenda of our creators are willing to compromise. We know we have to hold several meetings. We only want managers to understand the price they have paid on the agenda.