Productivity requires focus

Many of us face this problem - how do we get more work done? I've been thinking about this for a while and tried to find ways to get things done. Three years ago, Paul Graham wrote an essay about a similar problem - manager vs maker schedule. Thinking back, I realize part of the answer lies in his essay. Recently, I also watched a TED talk by Jason Fried talking about exact same problem.

So how do we really get more work done?

Firstly, figure out which category you belong to. PG mentions the two categories explicitly - the manager and the maker. A maker is someone who is doing the real ground work; you could be a coder, a civil engineer, an artist, a dancer (you need to create performances), etc. A manager for the most part is the one managing the makers; you could be a product manager, a CEO, a stage manager. For me, the fundamental difference is specialization. A manager is less specialized in the ground work (although he most likely has a good idea of it) and is often the glue of the company. In other words, they need to communicate a lot  (like really A LOT) to keep everyone on the same page. They are the drivers of the work.

However, this fundamental difference clashes with the role of that of the maker. A maker is highly specialized and is absolutely focused on building out that application or laying out the railway tracks. He is dealing with problems on the micro-level. He is the smallest unit of the large problem the business is trying to solve (his work can't be broken down into smaller problems). If the business were problem that can be solved recursively (say matrix multiplication), then the makers are the leaf nodes of the recursive problem (they have no choice but to multiply the numbers out explicitly and return the values). 

The makers are the heavy-lifters of the company. For them to do the heavy-lifting, they need a ton of time to firstly, figure out how to do the heavy-lifting and secondly, actually execute the heavy-lifting and if they fail at the heavy-lifting, they have to restart and iterate using another execution plan. This process inherently takes up a lot of time. It requires a lot of thought to be given to the problem at hand. Without the long stretches and constant questioning for a better solution, the engineers are not going to make any huge breakthroughs in solving the problem. If they context-switch too often and try to "multitask" their productivity is going to drop. It has been proven scientifically that humans work better when focussing on just one work at a time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking). Inserting meetings into the maker's schedule is a disaster for the maker because he is going to lose his focus. When he returns to work on the problem again, he has to more or less start from scratch.

Managers have to understand this. The best gift a manager can give to the maker is time - not a free lunch or iPad. That said, I'm not saying makers should spend more time alone. Makers should spend more time on the problem instead and this could be in a group setting where everyone else is a maker as well.

For a student (like me), I have to attend classes, work on projects/homeworks and revise for all sorts of tests. I often view classes as "meetings" which is why I try to clutter (around 2-3) classes together and have them in the morning. This way, I have the rest of the day free to work on projects/homeworks that require long stretches to complete. The only break I get in between is lunch/dinner and that's the only time I prefer to socialize and invite friends to hangout with (even then, I limit the time I spend so that I can get back to my work and crunch out another 4-5 hours). 

For me, being a student is often like being an entrepreneur. We are both the manager and maker. We have to go to classes and have to complete projects. An entrepreneur has to communicate with investors/their teams/marketting/business development/customer development and at the same time build the product out as well in the initial stages. I've heard tons of entrepreneurs out here in the valley who do similar things to what PG suggested in his essay - go to office on the manager schedule and come back home to work on the maker schedule.

So here's what I think about increasing productivity in the company. 

Firstly, everyone within the company should realize who they are (manager or maker?). They should also identify and categorize everyone in their immediate circle. This is pretty easy. Managers should meet with the makers less often (once a week is good enough! that too, make it a standing meeting). If the managers need to discuss personal problems to act like a good manager - DO IT ON THE WEEKENDS AND TREAT THEIR FAMILIES LUNCH. I'm sure the engineer won't mind and the manager's reluctance to do it on the weekend will make sure these meetings don't happen that often. 

Secondly, makers should hangout with other makers working on the same if not similar problem. This increases creativity within the group and doubles the productivity. Make sure the makers are extremely comfortable with each other if not they start becoming conscious of every move within the group and lose focus on the problem. Stuff like lunches and coffees should be used wisely to remove this friction between the makers. The same goes for managers - the managers main work should be figuring out the problem at hand and communicating it to the makers (don't try to solve the problem on behalf of the maker if you're not going to solve and execute the whole problem yourself and stick through with it till the end). Managers can do this with other managers. However, there are times where both managers and makers have to come together. At this point, both should level up/down to a medium ground. In projects, I have noticed that this often comes in waves. For example, in a 5 day work week, 1 day could be dedicated to all the meetings and communications stuff - both the manager and maker meet on this day.

Figure out what works best in your organization and stick with that - do keep not that makers are the solvers of the real problem at the end of the though and managers should be sensitive of their time and only disturb them when absolutely necessary. 

With this, I hope organizations and people can increase their productivity. I'll continue to add on to this as more ideas pop.