Maker/Manager

Originally described by Paul Graham many years ago, there are two ways of working: being a maker or a manager. 

A manager is dominated by meetings and fitting in short bursts of work in between ad hoc drop-in conversations and email responses.

A maker is dominated by deep work, creative and innovative thinking, and spending long chunks of time on one thing.

The real work – the work that should be valued – is done when making. It’s probably preferable to oscillate between the two approaches. Many won’t have a choice but to be in manager mode almost all of the time.