In 2009, investor Paul Graham published an essay called "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" that deconstructed the difference between makers and managers and the importance of allowing them to exist on their own schedules within an organization.

I re-read the essay recently, and it got me thinking about the composition of professional time—what "types" of time exist in our workdays and how we can find a more optimal balance across those types.

In this piece, I'll break down the four types of time, walk through a simple exercise to identify your current mix, and provide a simple approach to move towards a more optimal balance.

Breaking Down the 4 Types

There are four types of professional time:

1. Management
2. Creation
3. Consumption
4. Ideation

Let's walk through each type to understand it more clearly.

Type 1: Management

Management Time is what most of us spend the majority of our professional lives in. It is a staple of large organizations.

Typical activities of Management Time include:

• Meetings
• Calls
• Presentations
• Email processing
• Team and people management

It can be highly productive and efficient, but it can also create a focus on movement over progress.

Type 2: Creation

Creation Time is the second most common type of professional time. It's what most of us scramble to fill into the gaps between Management Time blocks.

Typical activities of Creation Time include:

• Writing
• Coding
• Building
• Preparing

Creation is where net-new progress is found. Thriving organizations have a focus on Creation, and ensure that Management doesn't infringe upon it.

Type 3: Consumption

Consumption Time is one of the two forgotten types of professional time. It is where new ideas for creation and growth are originally planted.

Typical activities of Consumption Time include:

• Reading
• Listening
• Studying

To paraphrase author James Clear, everything you create is downstream from something you consume. Consumption Time focuses on quality upstream to ensure quality downstream.

Type 4: Ideation

Ideation Time is the second of the two forgotten types of professional time. It is where new ideas for creation and growth are cultivated and grown.

Typical activities of Ideation Time include:

• Brainstorming
• Journaling
• Walking
• Self-Reflecting

As I wrote in my piece on The Think Day, most of us have zero time for stillness and thought in our day-to-day professional lives. As such, we make linear progress and miss out on the asymmetric opportunities that require creative, non-linear thinking.

Ideation Time is focused on this stillness and thought.

The Calendar Exercise: Your Baseline

Before you can make improvements to your balance of time, you need to understand your starting point.

I developed a simple calendar exercise to identify my own current balance across the four types of time.

Starting on a Monday, at the end of each weekday, color code the events from that day according to this key:

• Red: Management
• Green: Creation
• Blue: Consumption
• Yellow: Ideation

Note: There's no rhyme or reason to this color scheme, so feel free to pick whatever colors suit your fancy.

At the end of the week, look at the overall mix of colors on the calendar.

Focus on identifying the trends:

• What color dominates the calendar?
• Are there distinct windows for Creation?
• Are the colors organized or randomly scattered?

This simple exercise should give you a clear picture of what your current baseline mix of professional time looks like.

From that baseline, you can work towards a more optimal balance.

3 Tips for an Optimal Balance

Tip #1: Batch Management Time

Management Time is necessary for most of us, but it has a tendency to bleed out and dominate our days if we let it.

Calls, meetings, presentations, and email tend to fill every moment of the day, making us feel like we're constantly busy, running faster and faster, but never getting anywhere.

Work towards a "batched" schedule:

• Create discrete blocks of time each day when you will handle major Management Time activities.
• 1-3 email processing blocks per day.
• 1-3 call and meeting blocks per day.

The goal here is to avoid a schedule where the red bleeds out everywhere across every single day. We are trying to keep the Management Time windows as discrete as possible to create space for the other types of time.

Note: Your ability to do this will scale with your career progress. If you're just starting out, tiny, incremental batching improvements will be a win. If you're further along in your career, you may be able to make more aggressive batching improvements.

Tip #2: Increase Creation Time

Creation is what propels us forward, with more interesting projects and opportunities. We all need more Creation Time in our days.

As you batch Management Time, carve out distinct windows for Creation Time.

Block them on your calendar. Don't check your email or messages during them. Focus on creation during your Creation Time.

Tip #3: Create Space for Consumption & Ideation

Consumption and Ideation are the forgotten types of time because we rarely create space for them, but they are critical to long-term, compounding progress.

History's most successful people have all made a practice out of creating space for reading, listening, learning, and thinking. We can draw a lesson from this.

To start, schedule one short block per week for Consumption and one short block per week for Ideation. Stay true to the purpose of the block. Own that before increasing the presence of these types of time in your schedule.

With these three tips in mind, you're well on your way to finding a more optimal balance across the four types of professional time.

Give them a shot and let me know what you think!

I'd love to hear from you:

• What does your current baseline look like?
• How can you make incremental improvements to find a better balance?