Continuing my rants on work, here is another. But first, as always, context.
1. Read Maker and Manager schedules. Copying from a post that I wrote in 2016, in one line, he says that you need to split your days in two kinds – one where you “make” things and other where you “manage” things. Make is where you get real work done. Manage is when you are on the call and get others to do things.
2. I straddle way too many things and I refuse to become master of just one.
So lately I have found myself putting in too much time in meetings. Meetings in general are wasteful but often things get done if there are clear agendas and there’s a great moderator. I try and do that with most meetings I attend. And while its great to be able to take decisions and move the ball forward, truth be told, I for one don’t achieve a lot in meetings. I dont add any value. I dont do anything that makes me happy. That makes me feel alive. I dont add no real value. I am like the gatekeeper that has to push pesky kids all the time to do things. And that is one of the worst soul-sucking, thankless, energy-sapping work that you can ever do!
Actually, if I look back at the last 2 odd years and someone asked me to make a list of things that I have achieved, I am proud of, I will have nothing! I mean, who says on their CV that in the biggest achievement of the last two years is that you have enough money to pay your bills – something I could’ve done if I did not quit GE. Or CLA. Or Gravity. Or Mirum! To be honest its no mean feat to deliver good work and find ways to stay afloat in this time and economy. But is that what my epitaph would say?
Thing is, as a creator, creative, expressive, ambitious, lazy, thinking, individual, I have this innate need to create. And ship. In fact I think the mindfuckery that has plagued me over the last few week (apart from muck at work) is because I am not creating anything new (no new writing, no new businesses, no ridiculous daydreams, no new side projects, no moonshots). To me, the allure of starting something is greater than anything else. In fact if I reflect on the times when I have been the happiest, they have been times when I was creating things – 5×5, book, blogs, side projects etc. I get into the flow super easy when I do that.
Lately I’ve been getting less and less opportunities to do so.
In an ideal world I would do nothing but create. May be I am ideally suited for a career as a painter or an artist or a photographer. But then I dont have the talent to be one. So, I need to settle for the second best – a career where I get to make some money by doing boring things and then use that money to create things that give me happiness (aka Hugh’s Sex and Cash Theory).
So maybe, I need to get active on side projects. Or maybe, I need to get to the Maker / Manager schedule and use dedicated chunks of time to make!
. . .
The other thread here is learning. I recently heard Elon Musk say,
People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade, actually. You look at great civilizations like Ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And then the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.
James Altucher says that minds muscle atrophies if you dont use it. There are countless others that have extolled the virtues of doing things regularly, one day at a time. Each one gives a different name but the intention is the same – do things if you want to improve.
Or, in simple words, more I write, better I get. Better I get, more audience I get. More audience I get, more encouragement and appreciation I get. And that means I write more. Its a simple (but tad long) feedback loop. And with each iteration, the writing becomes better, faster, easier.
May be by being a manager, the creative cells in my head are dying. I mean I will never know but this sort of makes sense. Look at this post for example. I am almost two hours into writing this I am not even halfway there. Compare it to a time where I could write 2000 words in an hour. And now, I cant get mere 500 words! I can blame it on too many distractions and thoughts running astray. But I know that I am losing my mojo. It used to be super easy for me to get into flow while writing but lately I find it tough. May be I need to reinvigorate.
I can crib that I dont get time to write. Or read. But I know that I know that this is not true. The only reason I dont write more is because I have just too many things that take away the energy and time. No, I am not saying am straddling too many boats. I am saying that the things I am involved in, they are wasteful and I rather do things where the time is spent in doing actual work. And creating something new.
And one easy way to do it, is by dividing time in Maker and Manager schedules.
May be. May be not. Any thoughts?