Balancing maker and manager time

From: alexhormozi

For business owners and high-level employees, understanding and optimizing how time is spent can significantly impact a business’s financial success [00:00:00]. Many individuals claim to work hard daily but struggle to define “work” itself [00:00:35]. Traditional definitions, such as physics (force x distance) or time on the clock, are not useful for knowledge workers, as simply logging hours doesn’t guarantee results [00:00:45]. Similarly, effort alone (like participation trophies) doesn’t measure actual output [00:01:02].

Defining Work and Output

Work should be defined by its outputs [00:01:34]. The formula for work is:

• Work = Outputs [00:01:36]
• Outputs = Volume x Leverage [00:01:39]
  • Volume is the number of times you do something [00:01:42].
  • Leverage is how much you get out of each time you do it [00:01:43].

To work faster or do more work per unit of time, the equation becomes:

• Work per unit of time = (Volume x Leverage) / Time [00:01:53]
• In plain terms, this is output per unit of time [00:01:56].

The goal is to maximize output from the time invested, which in business translates to making money [00:02:08]. Many entrepreneurs, despite thinking they work hard, often fail to generate sufficient volume of high-leverage activities [00:03:26].

The Most Impactful Business Inputs

To grow a business, focus on two core strategies [00:04:05]:

1. Get more customers:
   • Increase traffic [00:04:16] (e.g., advertise more/better [00:04:37]).
   • Improve conversion rates [00:04:17] (e.g., practice sales, improve offers [00:04:39]).
2. Make existing customers worth more:
   • Raise prices [00:04:23].
   • Decrease cost of goods sold [00:04:24].
   • Increase customer retention/frequency of purchase [00:04:26] (e.g., improve onboarding, hold events [00:04:54]).

For most small businesses, the primary focus should be on getting more traffic and improving conversion [00:05:52]. If you lack customers, other strategies are irrelevant [00:06:11]. Consistently performing these high-impact activities (e.g., 4 hours daily on advertising or sales practice) is crucial for growth [00:06:49]. Spending time on activities that don’t directly contribute to these four areas is akin to doing nothing [00:05:18].

Understanding Your Time: Maker vs. Manager

Entrepreneurs typically engage in two distinct types of work [00:12:52]:

Maker Time

• Consists of long, uninterrupted blocks, typically 4-6 hours [00:12:55].
• Highly valuable due to its scarcity (e.g., only 14 work blocks per week) [00:12:59].
• Characterized by low urgency and high importance work that moves the business forward [00:13:03].
• A productive maker calendar is often an empty one [00:13:08], as interruptions can destroy an entire block [00:13:10].

Manager Time

• Involves smaller time blocks, often 5-15 minutes [00:13:33].
• Abundant (100+ blocks per week) [00:13:36].
• The goal is to fill the calendar with these slots [00:13:37].
• Involves training teams, coordinating, communicating, and putting out fires [00:13:46].

The Clash of Schedules

Both maker and manager work styles are important, but mixing them leads to disaster [00:14:03]. Trying to squeeze management tasks into maker time destroys productivity for half a day [00:14:06]. Similarly, having empty slots during manager time is inefficient [00:14:14]. It’s crucial to understand what type of work you’re doing and communicate these differences to your team [00:14:21].

Strategies for Finding and Buying Time

To dedicate 4 hours a day to the most impactful business levers, you need to find and buy time [00:12:38].

Finding Time: Maker Habits

The speaker implements specific habits to facilitate maker time:

• Prioritize a single project: Decide on one most important project and stick to it [00:14:44].
• Early start: Wake up early (e.g., 4 AM) and work until 9 AM, achieving 5 hours of focused work [00:14:50]. This aligns with balancing morning routines versus productivity.
• Eliminate distractions: Turn off notifications, work in a dark room with no windows, use earplugs, and remove all external stimuli [00:14:54].
• No “emergencies”: Understand that most business “emergencies” are not true crises and can wait [00:15:08].
• Consistent sleep schedule: Go to bed at the same time every night, including weekends, to optimize energy [00:15:25].
• Weekend work: Utilize weekends (104 days a year) for uninterrupted maker time [00:16:03].

Buying Time: Eliminating Unproductive Activities

The speaker emphasizes that becoming more productive comes more from eliminating unproductive activities than from optimization hacks [00:17:09]. You have one “battery” and personal/household tasks drain from the same source as work [00:16:59].

Consider the time spent on common tasks and their replacement costs:

• Food (groceries, prepping, eating, cleaning): 50 hours/month, replaceable for ~$800/month [00:18:40].
• Home cleaning: 25 hours/month, replaceable for ~$500/month [00:18:50].
• Laundry: 16 hours/month, replaceable for ~$200/month [00:18:57].

For approximately $1,500amonth,youcanreclaim96hours(twofullworkweeks)<aclass="yt-timestamp"data-t="00:19:06">[00:19:06]</a>.Ifyourtimeisworthmorethan$15 per hour, this trade is highly beneficial [00:19:18]. This is a form of reinvesting in yourself, but the reclaimed time must be used for valuable work, not leisure [00:19:30].

Additional unproductive time expenditures that can be eliminated for free include [00:20:30]:

• Following sports teams (4 hours/week) [00:20:33].
• Watching TV (21 hours/week) [00:20:38].
• Scrolling social media (17 hours/week) [00:20:42].

By freeing up this time, individuals can work on the most important tasks for a significantly longer duration (e.g., 16 hours a day, 6 days a week) compared to those who spend only a few hours a week on productive work [00:17:52]. This allows for a 30x increase in output for those dedicated to understanding productivity through time investment and acting on it [00:18:13].

The Speaker’s Approach

The speaker’s personal schedule involves four days of maker time and one “manager day” (Mondays) where meetings and decisions are stacked [00:26:49]. They also work weekends for additional maker time [00:27:08]. The speaker’s wife’s schedule is flipped, with four manager days and one maker day, also utilizing weekends for maker tasks [00:27:12].

Regarding balancing marriage and career goals, the speaker and their spouse constantly discuss business and don’t judge themselves for it, as it aligns with their shared interests [00:28:31]. Most of the speaker’s “fun” is found in work itself, though they take a few short vacations a year with entrepreneurial friends [00:29:05].

Key Takeaways

• Prioritize Inputs: Identify the activities that truly grow your business (getting more customers, making them worth more) [00:33:31].
• Structure Your Time: Clearly separate maker time for deep, focused work from manager time for coordination and communication [00:23:57].
• Eliminate Ruthlessly: Cut out everything from your life that does not align with your business growth activities [00:23:52]. This is a core aspect of time management and productivity for leaders.
• Invest in Yourself: Be willing to pay for services (food prep, cleaning, laundry) to free up significant hours for high-value work [00:24:11]. This is a form of value of learning and managing time and balancing life priorities and financial goals.
• Consistency over Hacks: Simple, permanent reductions in energy drainage are more effective than temporary optimization techniques [00:17:41].
• Compounding Growth: By consistently working on the right things and eliminating distractions, you can achieve exponential growth and outpace competitors [00:24:25]. The secret is simply eliminating drains on your “one battery” that aren’t aligned with your goals [00:25:16].