People who know me know I’m a HUGE fan of Google and everything they do. When I read The Google Story last year, it really made me think of how they did things and how they don’t let running a business get in the way of innovation. The allow the workers to dedicate 20% of the work week to their own side projects. And some great things, like Google News, have come out of 20% time. I’ve also talked about the importance of side projects before. Recently I’ve had trouble focusing on my side projects enough to get significant work done. So I’ve decided I’m going to try Google’s 20% time idea.

My last couple of posts have been about getting organized and balancing time, and that is my plan. Every week I will use Backpack to budget my time and allot 20% of it to my side projects in the hopes that I can gain some ground with them. Next week is a good time to start because I am currently on break and have some extra time on my hands. I’ll feel it out and see how well I do and hopefully implement it for the rest of the semester, until I graduate. Here is my plan of action:

• Every Sunday, list the things I need to get accomplished and estimate the time for each thing.
• Allot some time for urgent, unforeseen tasks
• Sketch out my week in time blocks, and FOLLOW THEM.
• Block out 6-8 hours each week for my “20% time” and have a plan for that time to use it efficiently.

I’d encourage all freelancers to try this out because it almost forces you to work on your side projects. These are things you want to get done, and since you’re using “real” time (IE time you could be using on other work), you should feel obligated to actually make your project go somewhere whether it be for internal use, to distribute commercially, or something in between.

I’m going to try it for a few weeks and report on how well I did (maybe I’ll even have something to show for it). What are your thoughts? Comments are open.

Tags: 20% time, productivity, side projects, work | Posted in Advice |