What a Meeting Actually Costs a Maker
For a manager, a meeting costs one slot. For a maker, a single meeting can blow up an entire afternoon by breaking it into two pieces, each too small to do anything hard in.
The damage starts before the meeting does. Knowing you have something at 2pm changes how you work all morning. You don't start the ambitious thing, because you know you'll be interrupted before you get anywhere.
PG compares it to how a meeting doesn't just switch a maker between tasks. It switches them into a different mode of working entirely, and switching back has a real cost.
“I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day.”
Key idea
A meeting costs a manager one hour. It costs a maker the half day around it, plus the ambition drained from the hours before it.