Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 08:18 am

Someone recently asked me, “How’s your work-life balance?”

The truth is I don’t think about work life balance. Maybe because for me, the phrase connotes families with 9-5’s, both parents around the dinner table every night, and weekends spent on hobbies and baseball practice. None of which I relate to.

Most of my family worked in the restaurant business. Which means you worked 10am to 11pm. You spent the entire day at the restaurant. You skipped breakfast and ate both lunch and dinner there. No one collected overtime or accrued vacation hours. One day off a week, two-weeks vacation a year, and your bonus was a red envelope at New Year’s.

That was work-life balance in our community, and it worked. It’s not right for everyone, but then again, neither is the “9-6 work-life balance” that gets lauded as the gold standard.

The question did make me think about how I allocate my time. I’m still developing my thoughts around this, but if to put a name of it, I’d call it the Manager, Maker, & CEO framework.

I’ll talk about each part individually, then how they all work together.

Manager vs. Maker

Paul Graham, venture capitalist and co-founder of Y Combinator, laid out his thoughts on a manager schedule vs. a maker schedule in a 2009 article. To summarize:

“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.”

The maker’s schedule is very different.

“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.”

Mr. Graham talks about how he manages his day to squeeze in both types of schedules:

“I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I’d sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called “business stuff.” I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect, I had two workdays each day, one on the manager’s schedule and one on the maker’s.”

Many people I know split at least a portion of their day between manager and maker, but I think of it less in terms of schedule, and more in terms of “mindset.” The manager mindset:

• Looks at a project and chunks it down into action items
• Prioritizes and sets the day’s tasks
• Communicates and manages expectations of others (managers, colleagues, direct reports, friends and family)

The maker mindset is focused on the work. They’re in charge of execution, in all of its forms:

• Sometimes it’s creative work, and the maker mind requires the large chunks of free time Mr. Graham alluded to in his essay
• Other times, it’s grunt work, and you’re grinding through it. In fighter’s parlance, these are the times when you simply bite down on your mouthpiece and keep swinging

Both manager and maker mindsets are equally important and equally necessary.

Without the manager, the maker might get a lot done, but it could be on all the wrong things. The manager is also the gatekeeper, the facilitator of time and space, that gives the maker enough cover to get things done.

Without the maker, the manager might build really neat calendars and Trello boards… but no work would actually happen. Life would be orderly but low impact.

I’ve added a third role to Mr. Graham’s original framework: the CEO. The CEO’s job is to set the long-term strategy. The CEO mind doesn’t get bogged down on the day-to-day, or even the week-to-week details.

Their job is to make sure our movement is directionally correct and sustainable. They balance long-term vision with short-term needs.

All three roles are critical, but we have to keep them separate and allow them to function at the right time and right place. For example, if you’re using your manager mind when you should be using your maker mind, you’re probably not executing as fast as you could. If you’re using your CEO mind when you should be managing, you’re probably not grounded enough in the reality of the situation. And if you’re making when you should be of the CEO mindset, then you might get a lot done, but it amounts to flailing, and none of the work drives you in the right direction.

How to deploy the manager, maker, & CEO mindset

Everyone’s different, but here’s how I think about the responsibilities of each role, as well as when they should be deployed. As I mentioned, I’m still developing these ideas, and hope they become sharper over time:

The Maker’s Mindset

• Maximize effectiveness
• Full engagement on a single task. Treat the task at hand like it’s the only thing of consequence
• Move fast and move with urgency
• Control the space between tasks, move smoothly from one to the next. “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”
• Fight for your time. Advocate for large, uninterrupted periods. When you win the battle for hours, fight for minutes. When you win the battle for minutes, fight for seconds
• Flow in the mornings, grind in the evenings
• Best times are always in flux, but currently 6am – 8am, and 11am – 2pm

The Manager’s Mindset

• Every week, set the priorities and schedule: what calls or meetings need to happen, and when is the best time (i.e. that stays out of the maker’s way)
• Chunk down tasks into small enough pieces that the maker can understand
• Facilitate smooth transitions between tasks (e.g. links one click away, notes ready, commutes minimized, food planned)
• Communication and expectation setting with everyone (bosses, colleagues, contractors, and family)
• Best times: 8:30am to set the day, 3pm to set the evening, 9:30 to preview tomorrow

The CEO’s Mindset

• Every month, set the strategy that keeps life holistically and directionally correct. Find the balance between work, relationships, health, and finances
• Provide perspective. “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
• Move slow and move with patience
• Look for opportunities to optimize, e.g. what can I eliminate, delegate, or buy, to free up more time? What processes or strategies can I implement to better control the space between tasks?
• Keep an eye out for sustainability, e.g. could I keep this up if everything went to shit? Have I built in mandatory time to recover and rest?

I look forward to updating this framework as I continue to develop it.

###

Photo Credit: The Social Network