My Own “20% Time”

“20% time” is a concept that Google came up with that, in it’s simplest form equated to:

“For one day a week, on company time, you can work on your own ideas”

The idea is that you free yourself from the shackles of the “day-to-day” and let your creative self “fly free”. Generally, these new ideas — without the restrictions of project plans, budgets and whatnot are where the real “magic” can happen.

There were some rules around programming languages that could be used etc. but how Google did it is not the subject of this post.

“I’m self employed”. No, I’m a liar.

I quit my last permanent job back in July 2011, deciding that I wanted to build a business. Help people. Improve my income. The usual.

What actually happened? I become a contractor — trading time for money. While I’ve enjoyed making some relatively good income along the way, it was not my intended mission.

The slap in the face…

Earlier this year, on my second “Think Week” — I read a book called “24 Assets”.
While reading, it became painfully clear to me that I didn’t have a business at all. If I go under the “geek murder bus” (it hunts us all), the company stops, the income stops, value delivery stops. It all dies with me.

I’ve been trading time for money. I’m not creating assets and delivering value in a very effective (and scalable) way for me or my clients. Everyone loses.

A business should be(come) a thriving, autonomous, value-providing machine that transcends “me” (or even “us”) — or as close to it as possible.

This really got me thinking — I need to follow my own advice. I am always calling out:

• Teams that have a low “bus count”. How many people need to be murdered by a bus before your team is fundamentally broken?
• Playbooks, checklists and their power. A well-crafted playbook/checklist means you can on-board new team members quickly, and automate much more.
• People need time and space to improve. You have to stop and get out of the “daily grind” to step back and view the big picture. How does it need to be improved?

Pulling the tigger

I’m a huge proponent of “20% time” in organisations — why don’t I have a 20% time for me and my organisation?

So — I decided to do it. I committed to taking 1 day a week away from it all and focusing on improving myself and my business.

Making it work

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that it costs me money. When contracting, if you don’t turn up, you don’t get paid (fair enough). I view this as an investment (as it is).

I’m not “having a day off”. I have a schedule. I have a plan. I get up and I go to work.

Here’s how it (currently) runs — this is always scheduled in my calendar:

Morning checklist

I have a checklist in my OneNote that forces me to review/consider:

1. What pain points I’ve seen over the last week. This helps me drive out ideas for assets (in any shape/form) of value that I can create for others.
2. Specific ideas for talks, articles, applications, tools etc. The above helps generate the “abstract” — it’s time to get to some idea generation!
3. Consider my “front of house”. I’ve been consistently terrible at maintaining my LinkedIn profile, website etc. I take time out to consider how I can improve how each of these things serve me and my business.
4. Improve the process. I review the actual checklist itself and see how it can improve. I often make minor tweaks such as adding granular items with deep-links to websites etc.

Write

This is a very new addition (as in, today). I believe that not only is “sharing caring”, but also a key part of the learning (and coaching) process. Both of which are very important to me.

So, I make sure that at least once a week — I get some quality time to write. I may draft, publish or completely tear up some content.

Create

I then pull some work from my (now) rapidly growing backlog of asset ideas to work on. I try to make sure that:

1. It’s an idea I am passionate about.
2. I integrate with other things that I want to learn (i.e. technology stacks, research areas).
3. I have a good list of value that it can provide for others.

This last item is very important. I’ve found that in the past, I would come up with one idea with one idea/example of how it could provide value for others.

Due to this continuous process of idea generation, I’ve been able to “rally around” ideas and get many different “angles” on them. This really helps give me clarity on ideas that may “scale” well.

But, I can’t afford to skip work :(

I certainly appreciate that, and I need to share something else with you that’s related — and another key driver for me “taking the plunge”.

I recently finished another book that really re-kindled something special for me. This book is “Show Your Work!”. In it Austin Kleon discusses “the amateur”.

Often, we use “amateur” as a derogatory phrase — but Austin highlights that original roots of the word.. Amateurs do things out of love (amare, amator, amatore). They don’t care if they get paid (and often don’t).

This took me back to a time where I was:

1. Financially broke. I couldn’t afford basic utilities and often had to make choices between “food” and “another geek book”.
2. Struggling to “make it”. I was young, without a formal degree and wanted to really get into software as a “professional”.
3. Happy. I had nothing. Yet I couldn’t wait to get back to the laptop and get back to learning, hacking, playing, poking and prodding.
4. Growing. I was blogging actively on multiple areas and loving the process. I was always hungry for new information and coming up with new ways of doing things.

My point is this. I was working every day of the week for long hours, but I still made time and space for learning, development and creation. We are (or should be) lifelong learners and that takes commitment.

I’ve really missed those days, the process, the feeling, the passion and the drive.

If you can’t give up a week day (I couldn’t for a very long time) — make time elsewhere.

How’s it going so far?

I’m really pleased with the outcomes thus far:

1. My backlog of “asset ideas” is growing rapidly. Perhaps too rapidly — but that’s a nice problem to have. I don’t have to do it all.
2. Several ideas are also consolidating nicely. As they linger in my thoughts, I add more aspects/clarity to them and how they can help people.
3. I’m working on my first idea (a SaaS application) now! You’ll see/hear more about this soon.

It feels really good to be “practising what I preach”. I’m enjoying the process, and the time to stretch my creative wings. That’s great for everyone.

Get involved!

I’d really love to hear from you!

1. How you give yourself time/space to create and grow?
2. What problems/sticking points do you face?
3. What’s holding you back from implementing something like this in your life?

Now, go give yourself “20% time”.

As always — I hope you find this post interesting.

Now go be awesome.