There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals.

When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done.

But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon...

Agree 1000%.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon...

Paul Graham:

There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals.

When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done.

But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon ...

From last year, more PG:

It will always suck to work for large organizations, and the larger the organization, the more it will suck.

Nicholas Dawidoff, on Freeman Dyson:

... always preaching the virtues of boredom ...

Samantha Power:

The French film director Jean Renoir once said, "The foundation of all great civilizations is loitering." But we have all stopped loitering. I don't mean we aren't lazy at times. I mean that no moment goes unoccupied.

From the archive:

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

Maggie Jackson:

Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment. In this new world, something crucial is missing -- attention.

Stefan Klein:

We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

Walter Kirn:

Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy.

Donald Rumsfeld:

Simply because a problem is shown to exist doesn't necessarily follow that there is a solution.

Ginia Bellafante:

There used to be a time if you didn't have money to buy something, you just didn't buy it.

Malcolm Gladwell:

Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power.

Michael Lopp, on Managing Humans:

This book isn't just about management, it's about creating places where people can comfortably build stuff. It's about what to do during the first ninety days of your new gig, and explains why you should pick a fight, because bright people often yell at each other.