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>> work on whatever is most important or most interesting, how often are these two the same thing? Which are you supposed to do when you've got all this open-e

>> work on whatever is most important or most interesting, how often are these two the same thing? Which are you supposed to do when you've got all this open-ended, distraction free time? And the whole "no schedule" thing comes off as cherry-picking data and situations. Even when Arnold was making blockbuster movies do you think they just filmed whenever he showed up, keeping an entire crew on standby? Did you notice how all of his examples are individual activities? that's great, but it's tough to accomplish meaningful, revolutionary work without collaboration. Schedules are super-useful (and I'd argue required) for short/mid-term planning and prioritization across teams where everyone is important. The approach here is for when there is huge asymmetry between parties - like an emergency room and patients. You show up with everyone else, then they triage (hopefully by importance, not interest) and process. Guess what? even the specialist still have schedules so they can work within a broader system. The approach here sounds like the "schedule" of a lot of affluent retired people.

MaulingMonkey 8y ago
We tend to be interested in important things we're competent at. That's how we got competent at them in the first place. Shepherding interest - trying to figure out what's interesting about something important that you haven't tackled yet - can be useful to get competent at new things, of course. In the emergency room, the pathologist will be interested in the sick kid instead of the guy with the broken leg, even if the latter is "more important". Unless the staff are getting overwhelmed by a mass-casualties incident, that's probably actually the right approach. (I'm no doctor though.) I like email and other asynchronous/recorded communication for collaboration where possible, in lieu of synchronous meetings interrupting flow. But as you point out, there's a lot of cases where this doesn't work. And even a bunch of lone wolves working on solo projects can benefit from synchronizing lunch with their coworkers for some socialization and facetime. I schedule that. It's flexible and not super rigid, but it's still a schedule.

MaulingMonkey 8y ago

We tend to be interested in important things we're competent at. That's how we got competent at them in the first place. Shepherding interest - trying to figure out what's interesting about something important that you haven't tackled yet - can be useful to get competent at new things, of course. In the emergency room, the pathologist will be interested in the sick kid instead of the guy with the broken leg, even if the latter is "more important". Unless the staff are getting overwhelmed by a mass-casualties incident, that's probably actually the right approach. (I'm no doctor though.) I like email and other asynchronous/recorded communication for collaboration where possible, in lieu of synchronous meetings interrupting flow. But as you point out, there's a lot of cases where this doesn't work. And even a bunch of lone wolves working on solo projects can benefit from synchronizing lunch with their coworkers for some socialization and facetime. I schedule that. It's flexible and not super rigid, but it's still a schedule.