In some rare cases, a meeting is the most efficient way to coordinate a project. But if you meet over every minute detail, or take a lot of meetings with no goal in mind, you’ll just end up losing time that you could have used to get work done. You don’t just lose that hour you spend at the meeting, either. You also have to take time getting into and out of meeting mode, and that’s often time you could better spend on the project itself.
In one of the most insightful essays I’ve read all year, Paul Graham explains the difference between the Manager’s Schedule and the Maker’s Schedule, and why meetings have a cascading effect of wasted time for people who make things. That “Maker” group includes writers, coders, designers and other project-oriented folks.
When a Maker has to attend a scheduled meeting, it has the effect of breaking a useful stretch of time into chunks that are often too small to accommodate any difficult work. Even a half-hour meeting can be distracting, because anticipating it and remembering to go to it pulls focus away from the task at hand, and refocusing afterward takes time, too.
Graham says that Managers don’t understand the Maker’s schedule, because their own schedules are blocked out into hour-long chunks by default. They have time to take speculative, “just-getting-to-know-you” meetings. A Maker, on the other hand, might need an entire day to work on one problem.
So, what can you do if meetings keep breaking up your valuable work time? Obviously, turn down the ones you can skip without causing offense. If you can, try to set up office hours, so you can do any face-to-face interaction on a schedule you can plan for and control.
Beyond that, communicate with the Managers in your life, so they won’t ask you to schedule an appointment without understanding the damage it does to your productivity. In fact, send them Graham’s essay — writing it and spreading awareness was his way of addressing the issue.
Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.
Photo Credit – clagnut
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }