How to Get So Much Done It Feels Illegal — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00My weeks are pretty straightforward.
2. 0:01Like Mondays, I have my my few meetings
3. 0:02that I have. Um
4. 0:04and then I have recording days.
5. 0:07Like this would be a day.
6. 0:08>> Mhm.
7. 0:08>> Um and then I have uh a day that I
8. 0:11dedicate to talking to portfolio
9. 0:13companies, external companies, things
10. 0:15like that.
11. 0:16And that's it.
12. 0:17>> Mhm.
13. 0:17>> And usually when I have those days, I
14. 0:19tell my team just destroy my schedule
15. 0:20because I'm not going to get any like
16. 0:22maker work done
17. 0:23>> Yeah, that's time period.
18. 0:24>> and so
19. 0:25they just stack it.
20. 0:26>> I was referencing the Paul Graham
21. 0:27>> Yeah. Maker-manager. Yeah.
22. 0:29>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23. 0:29>> Um I very much subscribe to that that
24. 0:32perspective. And so it's like if I have
25. 0:33maker days, I would like to have full
26. 0:34days ideally.
27. 0:35>> Can you maybe explain it to us?
28. 0:36>> Yeah, sure. So
29. 0:38So um Paul Graham has this little essay.
30. 0:40I expanded on the essay and wrote like a
31. 0:42a much longer thing, also for my team
32. 0:44and like it is an external memo with a
33. 0:46little bit less tech and a little bit
34. 0:47more, you know, third grade. Um but
35. 0:50fundamentally, you have two ways of
36. 0:51operating in a business. You have
37. 0:52managers who a perfect day for a manager
38. 0:54is no free time. And their day is
39. 0:56maximized by touching as many people as
40. 0:58humanly possible and making as many
41. 0:59decisions as they can
42. 1:00cross-departmentally so they can
43. 1:01influence.
44. 1:02Uh a maker, a perfectly optimized day is
45. 1:04a completely free day, completely empty.
46. 1:07And that would all work well and good if
47. 1:10managers didn't have to have to talk to
48. 1:11makers. And that's where the conflict
49. 1:12arises because for a manager, you can
50. 1:14pretty much just block your time in as
51. 1:16small a chunk as you possibly can to
52. 1:175-minute meetings, 10-minute meetings,
53. 1:19and it becomes this this this uh very
54. 1:21very chunked process. Whereas with a
55. 1:23maker, you pretty much have like two
56. 1:24chunks a day. You've got morning and
57. 1:25you've got afternoon, maybe three if
58. 1:27you're working 18 hours, right? Um
59. 1:29because most deep work takes you know,
60. 1:32maybe it might take you 30 to 45 minutes
61. 1:34to kind of like get into the flow and
62. 1:36then you want to work as long as you
63. 1:37possibly can when you're in that flow.
64. 1:39And there's also something called the
65. 1:40Zeigarnik effect,
66. 1:42which is the fancy word for an open
67. 1:43loop. And so if you know that you have a
68. 1:45meeting that's coming up at 10:00 a.m.
69. 1:47and you get in at 6:00, it's hard to
70. 1:50like
71. 1:50>> Yes.
72. 1:51>> get in because you're like, "Well, I'm
73. 1:52going to have to stop." But even at
74. 1:5310:00, you're not going to stop cold.
75. 1:54You're probably start looking at the
76. 1:55clock at 9:00 and be like, "All right, I
77. 1:57got to kind of prepare like, am I in a
78. 1:59place where I can wrap this, you know,
79. 2:00like this part that I'm working on and
80. 2:02then I have to prepare for that meeting.
81. 2:04And so that 1:10 a.m. meeting for a
82. 2:05manager seems like only it only cost
83. 2:08them 10 minutes, but it costs you half a
84. 2:10day.
85. 2:11>> Right.
86. 2:11>> And so that's where there's this
87. 2:13discrepancy between makers and managers
88. 2:15and where a business can get really
89. 2:17inefficient
90. 2:18when it doesn't know what type of work
91. 2:21the individual is doing the majority of
92. 2:23the time where they get the highest
93. 2:24return. And so that's where like I think
94. 2:27there's there's tiers or levels of doing
95. 2:29this from a founder perspective.
96. 2:31When I had
97. 2:33no money and all I had was time,
98. 2:37I basically organized my day so that
99. 2:38like from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. I'd do
100. 2:40my maker stuff. And then basically at
101. 2:429:00 I just knew my day was going to get
102. 2:43destroyed with fires and things like
103. 2:45that. As I
104. 2:47gained more leverage and had more people
105. 2:49who were skilled in the business, I was
106. 2:51able to keep pushing that 9:00 to noon.
107. 2:53And then that became kind of my
108. 2:54operating cadence for probably another 5
109. 2:56years was I would work from, you know,
110. 2:585:00 ish to 12:00 or 1:00. So I'd get
111. 3:00almost a full work day in and then I
112. 3:02would have all my meetings once I was
113. 3:04kind of like exhausted. And so the
114. 3:06meetings just require Well, it just
115. 3:07requires less horsepower than sitting in
116. 3:08more creative deep work. And so that
117. 3:10felt fine. And I would say that where
118. 3:12I'm now is kind of like version three of
119. 3:14this because like I I get a certain
120. 3:15energizing feeling when I look at a day
121. 3:17and I have nothing on it.
122. 3:18>> Yes.
123. 3:19>> Like the difference between zero and one
124. 3:20meeting
125. 3:21>> Yes.
126. 3:22>> is like huge. Honestly, it's like a
127. 3:23double in my like subjective well-being.
128. 3:25>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
129. 3:26>> And so explaining that also to my team
130. 3:28from a scheduling perspective like if
131. 3:29you're going to put one in there, you
132. 3:31have to value it at the entire cost of
133. 3:33one day for me. So it has to be a
134. 3:34[ __ ] important meeting.
135. 3:35>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
136. 3:36>> Which is unlikely.
137. 3:38>> Yeah, [laughter] yeah.
138. 3:38>> Like almost not One of the things that
139. 3:40you you could probably appreciate like
140. 3:41almost nothing is urgent in business.
141. 3:43>> Mhm.
142. 3:43>> Um tons of things are important, but
143. 3:45almost nothing is urgent, right? Our
144. 3:47payment processor shuts down, that's
145. 3:49urgent, right?
146. 3:50Um
147. 3:51even like a lawsuit, you don't get sued
148. 3:53overnight. Like it's important, but it's
149. 3:55not like we have to do something now.
150. 3:56Like we're going to develop a case and
151. 3:57we're going to figure out arguments,
152. 3:58blah, blah, blah, blah. And so
153. 4:01>> And most people don't get that, right?
154. 4:02Like most people like you have to teach
155. 4:03it to to executives, your assistant, all
156. 4:06those people. Yeah.
157. 4:08>> that's my that's my short and skinny on
158. 4:10on on maker versus manager. I'm
159. 4:11absolutely a maker. And when I don't
160. 4:14make
161. 4:15it's like a lot of times I'm a bit of
162. 4:17the tip of the spear from a from a
163. 4:19innovation perspective.
164. 4:20>> Yeah. Cuz obviously like we we teach
165. 4:22things, right? So that's at least the
166. 4:23that's the the hub of media, right? And
167. 4:25then that funnels into a bunch of you
168. 4:27know, if people learn business stuff
169. 4:29from me and then they're like, I want to
170. 4:29start a business, they go to school. If
171. 4:31they're they learn, you know, learn some
172. 4:32business stuff and they want to grow
173. 4:33their business but they're not that big
174. 4:34and they go to the advisory practice. If
175. 4:36they're you know, if they're a pure tech
176. 4:38company, they go to ACQ Ventures.
177. 4:40And if they're
178. 4:41a much larger company, then they go to
179. 4:43private equity side. But it all just
180. 4:44starts
181. 4:45>> like a funnel, actually.
182. 4:46>> Yeah, that's all the thing. Yeah. So
183. 4:47it's just it's just the the the the
184. 4:48media umbrella on top was was to was to
185. 4:51serve that function.
186. 4:52Which is generate demand.