How I Work: Bill Gates (MS) vs. Marissa Meyer (Google)
In this fascinating series, a dozen people talk about how they organize their work. For Bill Gates, it's
- Three monitors to organize the desktop,
- Outlook and SharePoint,
- a Tablet PC with OneNote, and
- a whiteboard.
Be sure to check out Marissa Meyer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience. Marissa spends one day a week (Saturday or Sunday) doing "e-mail for ten to 14 hours straight." Honestly, I didn't realize Google VPs personally moderated Google Groups, because really, what else could be so time-consuming?
Marissa uses GMail for 10-20 personal messages a day, but finds it comes up short for serious e-mail management where she relies on, um, PINE. Yes, PINE. Of meetings at Google, she notes that "We are a very laptop-friendly culture. It's not uncommon to walk into a meeting at Google where everyone has a laptop open." Unbelievable stuff, but I feel she's holding out on some productivity magic.
And sure enough. "To keep track of tasks, I have a little document called a task list. . . . It's just a list in a text file. . . . Using this, I can plan my day out the night before: 'These are the five high-priority things to focus on.' But at Google things can change pretty fast. This morning I had my list of what I thought I was going to do today, but now I'm doing entirely different things." Slow down Marissa, I can't keep up. This amazing futuristic world you live in seems too fantastic for mere words. But seriously, anytime you decide life's too short for 12 hour e-mail binges, 11 hour workdays, and people physically lined up at your door from 4:00 to 5:30 waiting to have critical questions answered, I can help you set up this thing called SharePoint. . .
But there's a lesson in them thar hills. Marissa is a bright person who does a great job - the Google user experience is wonderful. I'll assume she uses what works for her. Are they the best tools? Honestly, I don't know her world. I can only say that I have used those tools - every one - and if I still did, I'd average 67 hours of work per week (11x5 + [(14+10)/2]) too. Could she boost productivity by spending some up-front time building better aggregators and filters for her world? Probably. How? That would make a really good series.