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. You can block off several
hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change
what you’re doing every hour.

When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet
with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and
you’re done.

Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the
schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s
common among people who make things, like programmers and writers.
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. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking
it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you
have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone
on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the
next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the
maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

For someone on the maker’s schedule, having a meeting is like
throwing an exception. It doesn’t merely cause you to switch from
one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

Are you a manager or a maker?