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Marc Andreessen is a genius
Let's start with a bang: don't keep a schedule.
He's crazy, you say!
I'm totally serious. If you pull it off -- and in many structured jobs, you simply can't -- this simple tip alone can make a huge difference in productivity.
By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
Want to spend all day writing a research report? Do it!
Want to spend all day coding? Do it!
Want to spend all day at the cafe down the street reading a book on personal productivity? Do it!
When someone emails or calls to say, "Let's meet on Tuesday at 3", the appropriate response is: "I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available, I'll meet with you."
Or, if it's important, say, "You know what, let's meet right now."
Clearly this only works if you can get away with it. If you have a structured job, a structured job environment, or you're a CEO, it will be hard to pull off.
But if you can do it, it's really liberating, and will lead to far higher productivity than almost any other tactic you can try.
Here is more, all valuable, the pointer is from Michael Blowhard. Here is Marc's new blog.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 8, 2007 at 05:46 AM in Medicine | Permalink
Comments
That sounds dangerously like a technique. Sometimes people develop a certain rythym and an ability to juggle tasks or simply live well, and then they try to translate their groove into simple advice and it often simply doesn't translate. Making committments can also help productivity. Caveat emptor. Beware of the flotsam in the self-help aisle.
Posted by: John Goes at Jun 8, 2007 6:59:33 AM
"I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't commit to that, but
give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available, I'll meet with
you."
Unless you keep a schedule, you will never be available.
Moreover, you're being a jerk to the other party.
Posted by: Dan Klein at Jun 8, 2007 7:13:32 AM
You have to be completely independent (meaning not interactive with humanity) or simply have no regard for others to do this.
Posted by: Tia at Jun 8, 2007 7:53:28 AM
I lived in the apartment building Marc had lived in when he attended the University of Illinois, a few years after he had left.
When I was checking out, I asked the landlady about damage deposit refunds, and she began to tell me stories of those who had made no attempt to recover any damage deposit. Marc was one of those. According to her story, when he left Urbana to go do Netscape, it appears he left with his computer, a change of clothes, and maybe a backpack worth of personal items. Otherwise, the apartment had not been moved out of. Almost everything was left behind.
Posted by: Cyrus at Jun 8, 2007 8:02:38 AM
Tia is ahead of me on posting - I agree, you'd be a pretty inconsiderate person to act that way. What about someone who has to make an effort to meet with you, a walk across the campus, or a flight from another city?
But those arguments are unlikely to appeal to someone as self-centered as Andreessen comes across, so instead I'll add that you would end up being cut out of any really interesting discussions and work pretty quickly by people who would realize you're just not very reliable, particularly useful, and generally unpleasant to work with.
Posted by: David Rotor at Jun 8, 2007 8:38:35 AM
I guess I have some sympathy for those who say it's irresponsible, and hardly anybody even has the ability to do this, but part of me remembers all the time I've wasted in life in meetings that were either inherently useless or (worse) hijacked by a blowhard who won't shut up, and I warm to the notion.
My current job is such that my life is virtually meeting-free, and that alone makes it about the best job I've ever held.
Posted by: RJ at Jun 8, 2007 8:47:30 AM
You also can have limited commitments, but keep most of your time free. I used to work from home as a consultant, and most of my time was mine to schedule. It really does make a difference that when you're in the right mental place to write, you can write all that day, maybe with a couple interruptions to answer emails or something. Or that when you're in the wrong mental place to do any work, you can just shift your day around--I have a headache and need to go lie down for a couple hours, so I'll just do this work later. Or maybe I'm just not in the right mood to do a lot of writing right now, so I'll go do something else instead.
Posted by: albatross at Jun 8, 2007 9:07:53 AM
This seems to me wrong as an absolute but right at the margin. Most of us would do better with more spontaneously organized days, fewer scheduled commitments, and so forth. Indeed, while that technique for unscheduling meetings may be ridiculous for people traveling across the country, it's also exactly how informal workplaces work within the office. My most productive meetings are typically the result of "drop in on the next office and see if Larry is free" sort, not the "put it on your calendar for Tuesday at 3 sort." It's therefore not crazy to want to substitute more of the former for some of the latter.
I think Andreessen is basically right that you are, in the moment, the best judge of where the best marginal use of your time is -- far better than the you-of-last-week who would have written the schedule.
If your job is of the CxO variety for any x other than 'T', or if you are a teacher or something of that sort, this advice is clearly substantially inapplicable. As an absolute, it's clearly silly. But as a reflection of where we should be looking at the margin, it's pretty good.
Posted by: Grant Gould at Jun 8, 2007 9:24:34 AM
You may increase your own productivity but will decreases the productivity of others. Coordination failure. Other people will start losing time by trying to find a period when you are available.
Posted by: pinus at Jun 8, 2007 10:02:27 AM
will => it. Sorry
Posted by: pinus at Jun 8, 2007 10:03:16 AM
In other words, be a ... grad student?? As one who's finishing his thesis, I agree, it's great for productivity (think of productivity as function of time that's initially convex, and then concave past a singularity).
But other than thesis writers and researchers with only minor teaching/admin commitments, who can pull it off?
Posted by: Jack at Jun 8, 2007 10:21:59 AM
Summary: billionaires have problems too.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jun 8, 2007 10:50:19 AM
Being on the same Outlook calendar is one of those transaction costs that the firm minimizes (h.t. to Coase).
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at Jun 8, 2007 10:51:45 AM
A schedule is a commitment device. If you're self-motivated enough to constantly do small necessary tasks without a schedule, yay for you. But most people aren't.
Posted by: Mr. Noah at Jun 8, 2007 11:35:16 AM
Jack, I'm also writing a thesis, but I have an opposite perspective. I've had to curtail my free-wheeling ways and go on a disciplined schedule to get it done. I don't much like it. Problem is, in my heart of hearts, writing the actual thesis is mostly a chore that stands in the way of working on more important things (like more research).
There are lots of caveats, but the basic advice, "work on whatever is most important or most interesting," is golden. And I think you can pull it off in lots of different environments -- but the productivity record has to stand for itself.
Posted by: ArtD0dger at Jun 8, 2007 2:24:35 PM
Another way to summarize his advice is, "It what you want me to do more important than what I'm doing right now?" "Yes?" "Okay. Let's do it now." "No?" "Kindly come back when I don't have anything more importnat to do."
Brutal application of what has been standard advice for improving productivity for decades.
Does it work in general? Far better than most here admit. When I was a TA, being in class on time WAS the most important thing for me to do just then--my stipend depended on it to a far greater degree than anything else. Likewise as a student. Don't presume time-invariance of the importance of various activities. Sleep might not be very important at 10:00 a.m.--unless you worked through the night.
Interestingly enough, in midieval times, a freeman could not even be summoned to court at a time certain, because it was "beneath the dignity of a freeman to be compelled to appear at a particular time and place".
Of course, I am (legally) a servant of my employer, so....
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Jun 8, 2007 2:55:57 PM
Tyler -- thanks for the kind words!
Dan and Tia -- the intention is actually the exact opposite -- the point is to be completely available for the things and people that truly matter. If I do a proper job of implementing this technique, then the people I work closest with and who depend on me the most are able to grab me on a moment's notice to make forward progress on anything they need.
I think Grant nails it -- it's probably impossible to do this in the absolute. And yes, if someone has to come in from out of town to meet with me, then obviously I'll schedule the meeting. But day to day life is lived in the margin...
Thanks for all the comments,
Marc
Posted by: Marc Andreessen at Jun 8, 2007 2:58:59 PM
Another way to summarize his advice is, "It what you want me to do more important than what I'm doing right now?" "Yes?" "Okay. Let's do it now." "No?" "Kindly come back when I don't have anything more importnat to do."
More important to whom? His presumption (and why people are saying it only works in the margin) is that one person's time/productivity is worth more than another person's time/productivity.
For a lot of what I do, I need input, confirmation, and/or direct collaboration with colleagues. My own productivity sinks if I can't reach these colleagues in a timely, dependable manner. Similarly, theirs would sink if I adopted this kind of schedule. Most of us live (well, work anyway) in that model.
I suspect that a large percentage of people would love to have that kind of flexibility though. I certainly would.
Posted by: fustercluck at Jun 8, 2007 3:38:23 PM
Gee, it sounds EXACTLY like my life as a grad student. Which, coincidentally, was my least productive period of my life.
Everyone else already hit how this "plan" is a rotten thing for the others around you, but really, for most people, having no schedule means their life falls apart. The main reason is because they must keep everything in their head waiting until the time that they deicde to deal with it. Eventually, the list of projects that you have to swap between gets too high, and you spend all of your time swapping and none finishing the task. Or, you drop that list to a small number, and life falls apart as parking tickets go unpaid, dinner is unmade, etc.
Seems like Andreesen's got hte Paul Erdos plan down, though. Maybe he has enough money to make everyone else pick up after him. Does he have a wife?
Posted by: anonymous at Jun 9, 2007 10:24:19 AM
Michael Blowhard finally added RSS syndication!! (Alas, it is not full content.)
I gave up on him when I switched to Google reader a while back, and I was wrong to do it. French film, architecture, Michael Oakeshott, pornography, and the publishing industry all discussed in smooth, chatty prose.
(I could do without the Steve Sailer links, youtube, and old-foggy car stuff. But tastes differ.)
Posted by: Lee at Jun 9, 2007 9:02:07 PM
I read this article and very much enjoyed it. I decided to try to give the "3 lists" idea a try to keep track of my active, pending and old tasks/projects. I started out with Notepad, but it was getting annoying cutting and pasting text around. I wrote a small application that handles the management of the 3 lists and lets you make notes on each task/project. It runs on Windows and is free to download and use (it's completely free, as in no money is required). Here's the link:
http://vizonware.com/downloads.html
If anyone has any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to send me an email.
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