Working for on the weekend.

Ah. Now I know why I look forward to working on the weekend. And why I enjoy working in a start-up – despite the even longer hours – than in a big company. And my epiphany is down to Paul Graham (once again – I have to meet this guy) wonderfully articulating something I sensed and knew sub-consciously but couldn’t quite surface:

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

Much of what I do (and have done for several years – including when I was trying to build a new division in my old investment bank – RIP) needs ‘intellectual momentum’: ie it takes time to get into the flow. Often time this looks like just farting around – and maybe it is – but there is no other way to rev up the brain and prepare it for the task at hand. Sort of like booting up a computer or a new program perhaps. (So does that mean I’m a PC? Oh no…) And then once started, the worst possible thing that can happen is to be interrupted. The cost is higher than just another hour’s reboot. It usually means starting all over again. Switching metaphors, imagine doing a high jump: if you get stopped 5 meters from the pole, you can’t just resume your run-up from there… So that’s what I mean by intellectual momentum. I used to think that my need for this was just because I was getting old, but now thinking about it, it’s always been this way. The best work I ever did at school or university fit this pattern as well: a longish incubation and then a burst of sustained productivity (and occasional brilliance even.) The production curve looks – of course – like a power law:

So from now on, I’ll try to keep this front of mind and to be a bit more ruthless about dividing days into ‘manager’ or ‘maker’, and when not possible try harder to schedule meetings either at the start of the day or the end. Thank you Paul.

ps I’ve got more done in the past 36 hours than in the past 2 weeks…

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