How to Apply Google’s 20% Rule to Your Life

Over the past 10 days, I have been experimenting with TikTok videos.

Why am I bothering with a platform that might be banned in the US?

Well, I’m using TikTok as an opportunity to learn more about what works (or doesn’t work) with short-form video content.

I don’t have any sort of plan.

Instead, I’m just having fun with…tinkering.

This experiment reminds me of the 20% rule that Google has for their employees.

So in today’s featured article, I’ll talk about this rule and how to apply it to your life.

Let’s get to it.

Table of Contents

An Overview of Google’s 20% Rule

The 20% rule was introduced by Google for all their employees and simply states that employees spend 20 percent of their working hours on projects that they think will benefit Google the most.

(For more information, check out this article here.)

In essence, this rule allows employees to become more creative and innovative and has given Google tremendous long-term success (including significant advances like Adsense and Google News).

However, this rule can be applied anywhere, for anything, and not just in business.

The core idea here is to spend a small portion of your time to either learn a skill or experiment with an unproven idea.

It’s also unnecessary to focus too much on “20%” other time chunks work just as well – including 5%, 10%, and more.

Here’s how to apply this rule to your life.

Step 1: Pick One Thing

Start by choosing something important to you, this could be any skill that you think gives you an edge in your career, or a technology that you’ve always wanted to learn more about.

(Side note: Don’t know where to get started? Here’s a list of 101 new skills you can learn.)

However, it’s absolutely vital to limit yourself to just one thing at a time.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said:

“As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.”

If you try to learn multiple new skills at once you will be frustrated and won’t make any meaningful progress on any of them.

The video below explain how you can use just-in time learning to master any skill.

Step 2: Evaluate Your Time

Google's rule states that 20 percent of all working hours should be used in a 40-hour work. This amounts to around 8 hours working on new projects.

But for someone trying to learn a new skill in their spare time, this might not be practical or even realistic.

If you take a chunk of your leisure time and devote that to the 20% rule you will have a much more realistic amount of time to play with.

For example, if you had 10 hours of leisure time each week you could devote 2 hours of that to learning the “thing” you picked.

All that said, if you’re strapped for time, consider changing the 20% rule to 5% or 10% instead.

The main point:

Just spend a little bit of your free time on learning something new.

Step 3: Lower Expectations

Whatever skill you’ve picked, don’t expect to become an expert overnight.

Google doesn’t demand that the 20% rule delivers super successful projects (even if some have been).

The main point is to practice new skills and be innovative and self-directed.

One way to think about your learning is to think about the long-term benefits of your skill.

Is it something that is helping you face a fear (like public speaking) or is it a more social hobby that allows you to make more friends (like a team sport or other venture)?

Just have fun…tinkering.

Step 4: Be Flexible

If you’ve allocated a certain amount of time every week and on a given day you can’t do what you need to do, don’t beat yourself up.

If you have 2 or 3 hours each week and simply don’t have an hour on the day you planned, either do half an hour spread across two days or maybe spend 2 hours on one day.

Even if you can’t get all 2 or 3 hours done every week, don’t sweat it, or else you’ll turn what should be something good into a tedious chore.

The main point is that every week you should spend some time that gets you to around your 20% (or 10%).

Step 5: Have Fun

You must make this something that you enjoy and not something that you dread – you can make it enjoyable by focusing on different benefits and not being too results-oriented.

For example – let’s say you took up jogging.

You could think like an athlete and try to constantly improve run times, and think solely about improving your aerobic base, and this will get you fitter faster, but it also might turn jogging into something you hate.

Another way to look at this would be to consider the other benefits:

Time with nature
Endorphins from finishing a run
Time alone to think
Breaking out of your comfort zone

Instead of thinking solely about improvement (which will happen anyway) look at all the ways you can enjoy what you’re doing.

Step 6: Think Long Term

Thinking too short-term here can be a recipe for burnout.

Think about how the skill you’ve picked to learn will benefit you far into the future and can help keep you grounded and realistic.

It also helps keep you excited about what you’re doing and connects what you’re learning with what you hope to achieve in the future.

You can do this by visualizing what you’ll gain by sticking with something for a year or a few years.

The 20% Rule in Action

John decides that he wants to learn computer programming in some of his off time.

He figures that if he follows the 20% rule he’ll have about 3 hours a week to dedicate to learning this new skill.

He realizes that he is not going to be a coding wizz in a few weeks or months, it’s going to be longer before he starts to become competent at this skill.

Some weeks he doesn’t always get the chance to do the full 3 hours but he gets at least a couple of hours in.

He views his coding practice as something to experiment and have fun with, he takes his time on exercises and coding that he enjoys the most.

John understands that if he keeps up his practice he will become competent in a skill that he never believed he was smart enough to even attempt, and that it opens some potentially massive doors for him in the future.

Final Thoughts on the Google’s 20% Rule

It's clear that Google's 20% rule isn't just a quirky company policy—it's a testament to the power of investing in creativity and innovation.

By allowing employees to dedicate a day a week to explore new ideas, Google has not only sparked the creation of products like Gmail and AdSense, but it has also cultivated an environment where thinking outside the box isn't just encouraged, it's expected.

So, what's stopping us from applying a similar principle in our own professional lives?

Whether you're a solo entrepreneur or part of a larger team, consider carving out a slice of your week to pursue a project that fuels your passion or solves a problem in an innovative way.

Who knows?

That 20% could lead to your next big breakthrough.

And if you want more resources about work habits, be sure to check out these blog posts:

Finally, if you want to level up your productivity and time management skills, then watch this free video about the 9 productivity habits you can build at work.