If you’re a writer, or any kind of artist, there’s a good chance that you operate on a different schedule that most of the other folks in your life. I found a great essay by Paul Graham (www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html ) that explains the difference between the “manager’s schedule” and the “maker’s schedule.” Most people are on the manager’s schedule, but writers and such are often on the maker’s schedule. Managers’ schedules work on short increments of time – one hour, two hours, etc. Makers’ schedules work on much larger blocks of time – a day, a week, even a month. When you try to make a maker carve up their days into hourly blocks, they become totally unproductive.

Graham doesn’t offer a way to turn a maker into a manager, or vice-versa, but he did get rid of my guilt over why I let a one-hour appointment or meeting turn my whole day into a useless mess. I’m a maker, that’s why!

Anytime I can rid my psyche of a blob of guilt, I’m all for it. If you’re a writer, maybe you suffer from this particular kind of guilt too. I recommend you read this article.

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If You’re Not a Writer.

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