As I strive to be more of a participant in the life that revolves around me (family, friends, church, NASCAR), one of my resolutions has been to find a way to use my sense of structure and planning to help make this a reality. I’ve been intrigued by the Google philosophy of employees allocating twenty percent of their time to projects unrelated to their job. And so I came up with the Twenty Percent Day (TPD). What I aspire to is simply this: each week, I take 20% of the time spent on billable projects/earning a paycheck, and devote it to projects or investments that are also important to me, but not necessarily revenue-generating. Now that I limit myself to about 40hrs M-Th (believe me, that’s a HUGE win), that gives me Friday to work on other stuff. What I’ve found is that I’m much more focused during my working hours, and relaxed/available on the weekends, because I’ve gotten my “fix” for whatever it is that amounts to Chris Time. It hasn’t worked out perfectly, but every time I take advantage of it, I have no regrets. Perhaps it won’t last forever, but I’m going to try.
So, Happy Friday Everyone!