Shapeless days are not a badge of honour
If "every day looks different for us", our days have no rhythm. A lack of rhythm belies a lack of productivity.
- The makers amongst us should avoid aping executives. With their experience and their roles, spending long hours on creating something can be counterproductive for senior leaders. It's the opposite case for most us. Makers need meeting-free time to create meaningful outcomes.
- If all our days look the same, it may seem boring, but it's mighty efficient. Aim for a predictable rhythm so you guarantee yourself some time for deep work every day.
- To give each other the gift of rhythm and time, try the following approaches.
- Clear a predictable half of each day for deep work.
- Clear out one day a week to be meeting free.
The other day, I was listening to an industry colleague describing a day in their life. They explained how every day differs from another. It felt like they start their day by looking at their calendar and then take things as they go. That conversation reminded me of many other colleagues who’ve said the same thing. That “every day is different”.
To me, unpredictable days are shapeless days. This is the classic maker-manager paradox. Makers need contiguous blocks of time to achieve meaningful outcomes. In contrast, managers can run by the appointment book and hop from one meeting to another. As Paul Graham says, “Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet.”
The bigger problem arises when makers run their lives on a manager’s schedule. I’ve quoted James Clear earlier, where he says that three kinds of people influence us.
the close;
the many;
and the powerful;
Managers are powerful. That’s true even of the most humble, servant leaders. It’s not unusual then, that many people aspire to be like them. I’m guessing even you have colleagues who are makers, who in their aspiration to be like the managers, run their days by their appointment books. “Every day is different,” becomes a badge of honour. I’ll be honest, we can’t be proud of this way of working. A calendar driven schedule is amongst the worst blows to a maker’s productivity. Let me explain.
You aren’t a CxO.
In his book, Deep Work, Cal Newport refers to Jack Dorsey. Newport explains how Dorsey jumps from one meeting to another, much like any other CxO heading big businesses. Their work-style isn’t deep, but their work isn’t shallow either. They have many admirers. Many of their company and industry colleagues look up to them as role models.
Here’s the rub. If you’re reading this post, you’re most likely not Jack Dorsey. You’re probably not even a CxO. And if you are, most of what I say or what Cal Newport says will not apply to your job. For whoever is still reading, let me quote Newport.
Cal Newport, Deep Work
“A good chief executive is essentially a hard-to-automate decision engine, not unlike IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing Watson system. They have built up a hard-won repository of experience and have honed and proved an instinct for their market.”
I’d extend some of this to senior managers; especially the effective ones. After years of experience, they’ve devised shortcuts for work. This helps them go from meeting to meeting and decide what to do, without getting into the depth of any topic.
But most knowledge workers are makers. The manager’s schedule, where they operate as “decision engines”, doesn’t apply to us. I know some of you may believe that your job doesn’t need depth. That may be true, and if so, then you have my sympathies as a fellow maker. However, as Newport also says, “Just because your current habits make deep work difficult, doesn’t mean that this lack of depth is fundamental to doing your job well.”
Setting aside the c-suite, most professionals benefit from some depth in their way of working. I leave it to you to decide how much depth you need, but as a starting point, don’t mimic the work habits of a role you don’t yet play.
Boring is efficient
“On the other side of monotony lies a flow state.” - John Greene
I love GitLab’s values that together spell CREDIT. The ‘E’ in CREDIT, stands for efficiency. This value of efficiency relates to a behavioural tenet - “boring solutions”. Boring solutions aren’t always slick, but they’re often more efficient than a newer, sophisticated solution. In tech, this may translate to the fact that an established tech stack is more efficient than one that’s groundbreaking. People understand its limitations, and that knowledge allows you to deliver at speed. GitLab quotes Boyd’s law, which states that faster iterations are superior to the quality of an iteration.
In a similar way, a predictable day is boring. It’s not as exciting as to say “every day is different,” but once you build up a rhythm for the way you work and you know what to expect each day, productivity follows. Let me risk being boring and refer to Cal Newport one more time. In his book, he explains the “rhythmic philosophy” to deep work. The suggestion - build a regular deep work habit.
For example, in recent times, all my days have looked similar to one another.
I wake up by 0530 each day.
The day starts with a cup of coffee and while I drink my coffee; I do some reading.
By 0630 or thereabouts, I feel like I’m ready to write. I’m working on my book, so I close out all distractions and write as much as I can till 0900. On the worst day, I get at least two hours of writing under my belt.
I’m lucky that I also have control over the rest of my day, but even if I didn’t, the two hours each morning ensure I can stay on schedule and keep exercising my writing muscle. It’s boring. It’s efficient.
The gift of time & rhythm
Managerial aspirations aside, most people in maker roles get joy from creating stuff and working in a state of flow. What we create is also the most important factor to determine our performance reviews. So I think we can agree that makers need uninterrupted blocks of time to be makers. Waking up every day to the tyranny of our calendars leaves no incentive for productive work. Your day needs shape, rhythm and predictability. I have two ideas that you can implement on your team right away, to give each other the gift of time and rhythm. These are plays we’ve already discussed many months back.
1. Clear a predictable half of each day for deep work
Make half of each day, meeting free
Instead of days that are littered with meetings, move all your meetings to one half of the day. You can still have the same number of meetings, but now your day will have a predictable shape. If you make all of your first halves inviolate, you can devote them to deep work. The benefit of keeping your first half interruption free, is that you can work on problems while your mind is still fresh. Make this a norm across the team, so everyone respects the inviolate half for anything other than emergencies.
2. Clear out one day a week to be meeting free
Make one day a week, meeting free
Clear up one day each week, so it’s meeting free. I prefer Fridays as meeting free days. This gives me and my colleagues something to look forward to this day. It’s also an opportunity to end the week on a high, because we can get a lot on that meeting free day. However, if another day works better for your team, start there. We’re looking for predictability here, so take the best option available to you.
While I make the case for predictable days, flow and deep work, I understand we must respond to the needs of our customers or stakeholders. If there are exceptional circumstances, we should, by all means, break our work patterns. But as makers we can’t structure our workflow for exceptions. Don’t normalise a crazy environment at work.
If necessary, pause as a team and examine your communication protocols. Once you’ve agreed as a team that you don’t want to work in a hyperactive hive-mind, figure out a rhythmic pattern to your days so your makers have the time to make stuff. And the next time you take pride in saying “every day is different,” pause for a second and ask yourself - is that really a badge of honour?