Is your work environment designed to “let you cook”?
I stumbled across this fascinating concept while listening to Tim Ferriss’ interview with fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.
The interview took place at Dragonsteel Books, Sanderson’s 70-person publishing company in Utah. Ferriss commented on how the company seemed designed to support Sanderson’s creative work. The author replied with what might be the most brilliant organizational philosophy I’ve heard in years:
“Everything in our company is built around, ‘let Brandon cook.’ And take away from Brandon anything he doesn’t have to think about, or doesn’t strictly need to.”
It’s dead simple. Yet feels somehow revolutionary.
The Sanderson Method
Sanderson’s approach makes perfect business sense.
His ability to produce roughly 300,000 words per year is the raw material that powers his company’s revenue. Reducing his writing capacity would be like cutting the supply of steel to an automotive assembly line. Eventually, you’d ship fewer cars and watch sales plummet.
What’s fascinating is how deliberately his entire organization is structured around this principle. Every system, role, and process exists to maximize his writing time and eliminate distractions.
It’s not about productivity hacking or time management tricks.
It’s about recognizing where the true value creation happens and orienting everything else to support it.
And yet, this “cooking model” remains surprisingly rare in knowledge work.
I’ve been freelancing for years now, and I’ve had to build my own version of this system. But I still struggle with it—especially when client demands pile up, and I find myself answering emails instead of protecting my creative time.
Creating Your Own Cooking Time
Most of us don’t have the luxury of building a company around our skills. But we can still apply this philosophy on an individual level in our own practice:
First, identify your high-return skill.
What’s the equivalent of Sanderson’s writing in your work? Coding, strategic thinking, design, content creation, or client consultation?
The answer isn’t always obvious. It’s not necessarily what you spend most time on, or even what appears in your job description. It’s the work that, when you’re deeply focused on it, creates disproportionate results.
Then, design deliberate barriers.
The emails, the notifications, the “quick questions” – they all conspire to fragment our attention and prevent us from cooking. Without explicit barriers, we inevitably drift toward a state of reactive busyness rather than proactive value creation.
Implementing “Cooking Time” Within Organizations
Even if you’re not self-employed, you can still carve out cooking time within organizational constraints. Here are a few ideas:
1. Block deep work hours: Designate a few 2-3 hour blocks in your calendar that are non-negotiable. Communicate clearly to teammates or clients that this is when your best work happens and, while you’re available in emergencies, very few things constitute one.
2. Create friction for interruptions: Turn off notifications, close communication apps, and physically signal when you’re in deep work mode. One of my clients uses a simple system: headphones on means “only interrupt for emergencies.” It’s basic, but it works because everyone understands and respects the protocol.
3. Batch shallow work: I schedule two 30-minute blocks for email processing – one mid-morning and one late afternoon. You can do the same with quick check-ins with the team. This prevents these necessary but lower-value activities from fragmenting your day.
4. Set expectations: Quite often, managers can be apprehensive about you “disappearing in deep work” because they don’t know when they’ll hear back from you. Set clear policies together about the reply period that makes sense—it can often be longer than you think.
5. Document and demonstrate results: The proof is in the pudding. Track what you accomplish during cooking time compared to fragmented work periods. Having data on the productivity difference strengthens your case for protecting this approach.
***
Even if your current environment isn’t built around letting you cook, you can still design deliberate systems to protect your most valuable contributions.
So, how could you create more space to let yourself cook next week?
Space to create matters,
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