Solvitur ambulando: This phrase from the Greek philosopher Diogenes translates more or less to ‘it is solved by walking’. And, indeed, there is something about walking that helps both clear the mind and think clearly.

Try a walk to get a different perspective on a problem when you’ve been banging your head against one sat at your desk. Or try a walking meeting with the bonus that you get a bit of exercise in too.

Solvitur ambulando

In Manager Time a day is neatly sliced up into hourly chunks according to the calendar. Meeting someone is as easy as finding a free slot that coincides. You don’t have to worry too much about what you’ll be doing next as your calendar will tell you.

In Maker Time a day is an open book to get something hard and meaningful done. Even thinking when a meeting might be and remembering to go can distract from getting on with making. Long, uninterrupted chunks of time, not sliced and diced by meetings on the hour are ideal to make progress on hard problems and tackle something new. Even a single meeting in the middle of an afternoon can disrupt that long meaningful chunk into two that make it harder to tackle something big as you have to context switch and pick up where you left off.

Most modern offices operate on Manager Time. It’s great for meetings but comes at a cost for getting meaningful work done. If you’re a maker you may associate with the feeling that to get some real work done you feel you need to do it at the weekend, or in an evening after everyone’s gone home, when you’ll be free of interruptions.

If you’re a manager, consider your makers when you schedule your next meeting.

If you haven’t already, you should read the original article Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule, by Paul Graham from whom this excellent observation is from.

Manager time, maker time

In some forests where the trees grow tall and straight, like those in the US Pacific Northwest, when a giant tree falls, it creates an opening in the forest canopy that lets in light for new growth to take foot. The mighty fallen tree trunks themselves provide a new surface for seedlings to take root, away from the competition of the forest floor. When this happens, the fallen tree becomes an integral part of a new ecosystem.

Such fallen trees are known as nurse logs. Sometimes, a nurse log is so successful as a nursery for the young trees that they will grow along the full length of the fallen trunk. When the original trunk finally decays, it leaves behind it a remarkable, straight line of trees.

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Nurse log