Larry David vs Jeff Bezos ⇪

Our aim at Athena is to give you your time back so you can spend it in the ways that matter most.

In each issue of our newsletter you’ll get unique delegation tips.

Larry David vs Jeff Bezos

Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David wrote Seinfeld's best episodes in 16-hour sprints. Just the two of them in a room, churning out 60 pages of killer comedy in three days.

"Five minutes of small talk, and then right at it," Seinfeld explained. No lunch breaks. He'd meditate instead and eat while working.

Larry David would sometimes come in on Saturdays alone, telling Jerry "I'm just gonna play with this myself."

Jeff Bezos operates on the opposite end of the spectrum. No meetings before 10 AM. Those morning hours are sacred “puttering” time. “High IQ” meetings, on the other hand, are reserved for 10 AM through noon.

Two radically different approaches with one hidden thread:

They both found their zone and defended it religiously.

For Seinfeld and David, it was marathon writing sessions where their 'two brains melded seamlessly.' For Bezos, it's those late morning hours when his decision-making is sharpest.

Most leaders treat every hour as equal. But energy isn't linear.

There’s no 'right' schedule that applies to all successful people.

Just ask Jerry and Larry. They wrote 180 episodes of the greatest sitcom ever made by leaning into their own creative rhythm.

Find your zone. Protect it ruthlessly. Let everything else adapt.

Get our guide to calendar management here.

Auto Delegations

Manual task-assignment is still the default for most delegators. But there’s a better way.

Ben Wunderman, CEO and Co-Founder of Packsmith, was in the middle of raising their next round. He manually delegated every task to his assistant, Bettina — and it devoured hours between pitch meetings.

Bettina noted the inefficiency, and proactively set up automatic delegations in Slack. Auto-delegation is when your tools automatically create tasks for your assistant based on triggers you set up.

Their system now automatically:

#1 — Prompts Bettina to draft pre-pitch emails the day before each investor meeting

#2 — Triggers post-pitch follow-ups where Ben simply reacts with an emoji to select the right template

When tasks follow a predictable pattern, automation handles the delegation while you focus on what matters.

Beginner delegators → Spend their valuable time and energy assigning each delegation.

Advanced delegators → Use auto-delegations when it makes sense to accomplish the same result (or better) without any manual work.

Want to explore more types of auto-delegations (and how to implement them)?

Check out our deep dive here.