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The Digital Tool Factory Blog

How I explain Paul Graham’s Maker schedule and Manager schedule without being insulting

'Day [009]  Schedule.' photo (c) 2010, Sadie Hernandez - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/One of Paul Graham’s most useful insights has been his Maker Schedule vs Manager Schedule. Go ahead and read the link if you’re not familiar with the concept.

It is

  • True
  • Useful
  • Deep
  • and very hard to explain to people without being insulting

By singleing yourself out as a “maker”, and hence on a “Maker Schedule” you run the serious risk of alienating all of your equally smart colleagues who have different interests and work responsibilities.  Coders, designers and artists will understand it immediately, but if you’re not one of those people it can sound like you’re putting yourself on a pedestal.

Remove Maker Schedule and Manager Schedule from the description

Just remove the job description, and substitute the noise that you’re making, which implies the type of work that you’re doing.

If you’re producing mouse clicks, you’re doing manager work, and you’re on a manager schedule.  If you’re producing keyboard clicks, you’re doing maker work, and you’re on a maker schedule.  The work is being labeled, not the person.  No one is categorized as “creative” or “business people”, it’s just the work you happen to be doing at the time.

I’ve found that people understand this instantly and intuitively.  No need to explain “Flow” or why interruptions cost so much time.  People can relate to the fact that (usually) work involving the keyboard just takes longer than work involving the mouse, and no one is inadvertently put down by being implicitly labeled.

That’s worked for me anyway.


18
May 12


Written By Steve French

 

Free Jim Camp negotiation book – “Start With No”

DiscussionI listened to an interview with negotiation coach Jim Camp on Mixergy and learned much from the experience.  He evangelizes (for lack of a better word) a negotiation strategy based on rules rather than outcomes, which rules out “win-win” as a strategy.    He also posted the audio copy of his book “Start With No” on his website, called (not surprisingly) StartWithNo.com.  I’m listening to the audio version now and I’m learning useful things.  So far, the economic basis for negotiation (consumer surplus, gains from trade, etc) is omitted and he affirms several obvious points that everyone needs to remember and explains several subtle points in detail.

Recommended reading and listening.  I find it to be  10 out of 10 so far.

I imagine I will wind up buying his later book for highlighting and checklist purposes.

Creative Commons License photo credit: pawpaw67

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog


15
Apr 10


Written By Steve French

 

Thursday link roundup

Here is what I’ve been reading lately, recorded here for posterity

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog


25
Mar 10


Written By Steve French

 

Sunday link roundup, Design, vanishings, networks and masterminds

Link AssuagedHere are all of the links I keep meaning to send out to people, all in one place.

Creative Commons License photo credit: P/UL

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog


21
Mar 10


Written By Steve French

 

Jason Fried and I have common ideas

I just watched an interview with Jason Fried of 37 Signals and he and I share the notion (first said by me in 2001) that people in prison are the most effectively creative people in the world (in their escape attempts), and that constraints are good for creativity.  He says that  bootstrapping forces companies to think about what their product, instead of just running around spending money.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog


27
Feb 10


Written By Steve French

 

Your Friday reccomended reading

I haven’t done much of this sort of thing lately, but I’ve found these pages useful

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog


12
Feb 10


Written By Steve French

 




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