Why Your Creative Team's Empty Calendar Means They're Actually Working

I've been struggling with something at Forge that I couldn't quite put into words.

Our creative team needs long, uninterrupted blocks to do their best work. Deep focus. Flow state. The kind of time where you lose yourself in solving a problem and look up to realize four hours have passed.

But our account team needs to coordinate. Check in with clients. Make decisions. Keep projects moving. They work in shorter bursts, juggling multiple conversations and moving pieces throughout the day.

Both approaches are necessary. Both teams are doing exactly what they should be doing. But when they interact, something breaks.

Then I watched a video from Alex Hormozi about maker versus manager schedules and everything clicked.

The Two Types of Productive Days

Alex breaks it down like this: there are two fundamentally different ways to invest time productively, and most businesses don't realize they're running both simultaneously.

Manager Schedule: Small chunks. 15 minutes to an hour. A fully booked calendar is a maximally productive day. Empty time slots feel like wasted opportunities. These are the people coordinating, deciding, directing, training. They work on meetings.

Maker Schedule: Large blocks. 4–6 hours minimum. An empty calendar is a maximally productive day. Interruptions destroy entire mornings or afternoons. These are the people creating, building, solving complex problems. They work off meetings.

As Alex puts it: "For a manager, a short meeting costs one work unit which is maybe 15 minutes… whereas if they take one from a maker they take one of the two time slots you have per day."

One 30-minute meeting at 10am doesn't just cost 30 minutes for a creative. It kills the entire morning because you can't get into flow knowing you have to break in an hour. Then you need 20 minutes after the meeting to remember where you were. That "quick sync" just cost 3+ hours of deep work.

Why This Destroys Creative Agencies

At Forge, our account team operates on manager schedules. They're coordinating with clients, checking project status, making decisions, keeping everything moving. A full calendar means they're being productive.

Our creative team operates on maker schedules. They're designing brand systems, developing strategy, editing video, solving complex creative problems. An empty calendar means they can actually do their work.

The problem? When managers don't understand how makers work, they accidentally destroy productivity while trying to check on it.

"Hey, got 5 minutes to sync on that project?"

For the account person, this is just one of twenty conversations they'll have today. It's how they work. It's productive.

For the creative person, this just killed their morning. They can't get back into the design system they were building. They can't return to the strategic framework they were developing. The flow is gone.

And here's the vicious cycle Alex describes: "If a maker is falling behind, the manager's solution is to interrupt them more, which creates a vicious cycle. Managers prevent the work that they check in on."

What We're Doing

At Forge, we're experimenting with this. We haven't cracked it, but here's what we're actually doing:

Monday is Meeting Day: We've designated Mondays for coordination. Client check-ins, project alignment, strategic reviews—if it needs a meeting, it happens on Monday. This protects the rest of the week from the death-by-a-thousand-meetings problem.

Afternoons Are Sacred: Tuesday through Friday, we try to keep afternoons completely clear for creative team flow state. This isn't always possible—client schedules complicate things—but when we protect it, the output difference is obvious.

Full Flow Days for Some: We've identified which roles need complete maker days and which need manager schedules. Some of our creative team gets entire days with zero meetings, just deep work.

Organizational Split We're Testing: Here's what's rad about our latest change: we've restructured so our Creative Director can work linearly on projects. He focuses primarily on one project at a time in maker mode, producing finished work faster and at higher quality. Meanwhile, our Associate Creative Director operates mixed in manager and maker mode, juggling multiple projects simultaneously to meet client demands and keep everything coordinated.

This split lets us serve both needs. The CD gets the sustained focus required to craft excellent work. The ACD provides the responsiveness and coordination clients need. One maker, one manager, both essential.

Integration Still Helps: When strategy, creative, and production overlap significantly, we need fewer coordination meetings because everyone already has shared context. Questions get answered in real-time without scheduling. But we had to be intentional about building this overlap—it doesn't happen by accident.

Some of this is working. Some of it falls apart when we get busy. We're figuring it out as we go.

The Real Cost Nobody Talks About

Alex breaks down the math: "If you've got some people making $100,000 a year on the meeting, that's $50 per hour. If you have 10 people on a one-hour call, that was a $500 call. If we took the whole team out to Chili's and spent $400, it'd be considered a major expense. But every day you're taking the whole team out to Chili's 10 times a day."

Every "quick sync" costs more than we think. Not just in calendar time, but in the deep work that doesn't happen because of it.

For creative work specifically, the cost is even higher. The strategist who can't finish the positioning framework. The designer who can't complete the visual system. The editor who can't get into the rhythm of the cut. That's not just lost time—that's lost quality.

What Actually Works

Alex recommends a three-pronged approach: educate managers, empower makers, and change organizational culture.

For Account/Project Teams: Understand that asking a creative for "5 minutes" at 10am costs them their entire morning. One meeting uses up one of their 10 major work blocks per week. Before requesting a meeting, ask: is this worth destroying half their day? Can it wait until our standard coordination time?

For Creative Teams: Communicate how you work. Tell people when you'll be unresponsive. If a meeting does blow your morning, switch that time to manager mode and knock out all the other coordination you've been putting off. Fight fire with fire.

For The Organization: Make this language standard. When someone says "that's a maker's no," everyone understands they're protecting their output, not being difficult. Consider mandated quiet times when entire teams can't message or meet.

Where We're Still Figuring It Out

The hardest part? Client schedules. We can control our internal time, but clients often want coordination on their terms, which means interrupting maker time.

We also have roles that need to switch between both modes. I spend some days in deep maker mode (like writing this) and other days in pure manager mode (back-to-back meetings with portfolio companies, team coordination, strategic decisions).

As Alex says: "You don't want to identify as one or the other, you just want your calendar to reflect the nature of the work."

The Question I'm Sitting With

How do creative agencies balance client responsiveness with the deep work that produces the best creative output?

Our account team needs to be available. Our clients expect coordination. But our creative team needs uninterrupted time to make the work that actually matters.

We're getting better at protecting maker time. We're getting better at clustering manager time. But we haven't solved the fundamental tension.

I'm sharing this less as someone with answers and more as someone who finally has the language to describe the problem. Alex's framework gave me that.

Creative should solve, not just impress. But solving requires the time and space to actually think deeply about problems.

If you run a creative team, watch Alex's full video. It's 36 minutes that might save you hundreds of hours of wasted productivity.

And if you've figured out how to balance maker and manager needs in a client-service business, I'm all ears.

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How does your team handle the maker vs manager tension? Have you found ways to protect deep work while staying responsive to clients?