Work, Work, Work

This week was a nice week. I’ve gotten a lot accomplished despite some illness, and I have made some of my business goals a reality in these last couple months.

The learning this week was really nice. Dreaming big dreams was a topic that I liked this week. The idea stems around believing you can achieve a big goal. The part of my study this week that I liked the best was the idea of Google’s 20% time.

Google’s idea of 20% time says that you take one day a week to work on something that you want to work on (think of 1 day out of a traditional 5 day work week). Most of the time you can’t devote one whole day a week to working on a personal project, but more often it is parts of days that incorporate the full 20%.

The video I watched said that in 2005, 50% of Google’s projects that were released were done out of the 20% time. I almost couldn’t believe it but I know it is true. In my personal experience, I was able to spearhead a training program for a furniture franchise with about 6 other people in about 8 months. The project should have taken 1.5 years, but we were enthusiastic about it because it was our personal project.

It just goes to show if you let employees work on things they are passionate about they can produce great results. I think the same goes for our personal lives. If we pursue our dreams and passions the work we do never feels like work.