Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule and…

Can we time-box collaborative work?

Paul Graham wrote a now-popular article on the ‘Maker’s Schedule’.

In it, he advocates the practice of distinct timeboxing for both — time to ‘make’ (products, ideas etc.), and time to ‘manage’ (processes, teams etc.).

This concept has been incredibly useful for me. I now wake up daily at 4 am and work on ‘Making’ till 10 am. That’s 5-6 hours of ‘Maker Time’ each day — before I ‘manage’ inbound requests, and work with people (from 10–6pm).

In addition to this practice — I’ve been a little more active on ‘social media’ recently.

I was relative inactive (on Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc.) for a while — for a variety of reasons. And I realised that my productivity was hampered when I stopped sharing; testing out ideas; and engaging in conversations with like-minded people online.

Now — I wonder if it makes sense to timebox all ‘online conversations’. Does it make sense to set aside a fixed amount of time each day — completely focused on contributing to discussions on social networks and blogs (and Medium)?

If we distinguish ‘maker-time’ from ‘manager-time’… … is there any value in creating a third, distinct context (or label) for time spent 100% focused on sharing/ideating/collaborating with others?

What would it look like? In addition to blogging, participating in forums and conversations on ‘social’ platforms; it might even be hosting an open Skype channel for anyone and everyone who wants to chat about topics that you’re also interested in.