20% time is a negative space. The distinction (although this wasn't the intent) just reminds you that, during 80% of your time, you're a manager's bitch. It was supposed to set a minimum on self-directed work (i.e. "no manager can deny you this") but it became a maximum. Which might be okay if you're making hedge-fund money and can cash out after a few years, but for typical middle-class compensation, no one is going to work hard (and 40 hpw is working hard if you actually work during most of that time) for more than 2 years without graduating to a position of full autonomy and some influence.
None of us are working to be peons. We're working because we want to be substantial some day, and substantial people aren't happy controlling only 10 or 20 percent of our working time. We'll put up with that in our first 6-12 months on a job because we're FNGs still trying to learn the ropes and become useful, but anyone ambitious is going to want, at least, to be implicitly trusted with his or her time after one year.
One problem with 20%T is that a lot of people end up using it to do work that decent companies would allow people to credit as regular work, such as teaching classes, mentoring interns, and maintaining legacy code on which their product relies. WTF, Google? That is straight-up regular work that deserves credit toward 80% time.
What happens in practice with 20% time, and this is why a lot of managers hate it, is that people who use it for real (not just "goofing off", but actually trying to accomplish something) end up becoming a lot more passionate about it than their regular project. (The few people at Google who are lucky enough to get interesting work rarely use 20% time, at least not officially.) Even if they're technically putting 32 hours into their regular work, their 20%-time project grows from 8 hours to 18, then 30, then 50. Which means that either (a) they're not really putting in 32h on their main project, or (b) they are, but they're working 70+ hour weeks and their per-hour efficiency has plummeted, especially because they're using their best and most energetic hours on side projects.
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20% time is a negative space. The distinction (although this wasn't the intent) just reminds you that, during 80% of your time, you're a manager's bitch. It was supposed to set a minimum on self-directed work (i.e. "no manager can deny you this") but it became a maximum. Which might be okay if you're making hedge-fund money and can cash out after a few years, but for typical middle-class compensation, no one is going to work hard (and 40 hpw is working hard if you actually work during most of that time) for more than 2 years without graduating to a position of full autonomy and some influence.
None of us are working to be peons. We're working because we want to be substantial some day, and substantial people aren't happy controlling only 10 or 20 percent of our working time. We'll put up with that in our first 6-12 months on a job because we're FNGs still trying to learn the ropes and become useful, but anyone ambitious is going to want, at least, to be implicitly trusted with his or her time after one year.
One problem with 20%T is that a lot of people end up using it to do work that decent companies would allow people to credit as regular work, such as teaching classes, mentoring interns, and maintaining legacy code on which their product relies. WTF, Google? That is straight-up regular work that deserves credit toward 80% time.
What happens in practice with 20% time, and this is why a lot of managers hate it, is that people who use it for real (not just "goofing off", but actually trying to accomplish something) end up becoming a lot more passionate about it than their regular project. (The few people at Google who are lucky enough to get interesting work rarely use 20% time, at least not officially.) Even if they're technically putting 32 hours into their regular work, their 20%-time project grows from 8 hours to 18, then 30, then 50. Which means that either (a) they're not really putting in 32h on their main project, or (b) they are, but they're working 70+ hour weeks and their per-hour efficiency has plummeted, especially because they're using their best and most energetic hours on side projects.