There never was any real 20% time. It was, as others are saying, 120% time, at least if you care about actually moving upward on the career ladder. Paradoxical

There never was any real 20% time. It was, as others are saying, 120% time, at least if you care about actually moving upward on the career ladder. Paradoxically, this makes it a good policy _for Google_: if you're an idiot, you'll put in 120% effort and Google gets more work per dollar from you (and gets to deny promo because you "spent too much time on your 20% project", as well), if you're not an idiot, you will work 8 hours a day, but then spending 20% of time on things unrelated to your next promo completely dooms your chances of getting it. Some people used to take advantage of this, truth be told you're paid pretty well even at the senior level, and Google expects most people stay at that level indefinitely. Although then there's the question of why one wouldn't just take it easy at work and spend their spare time on hobbies instead that Google won't own the output of. OTOH some people are taken in by the Google mythos, and they think spending 20% of their time on semi-random shit is _conducive_ to their career advancement. You get disabused of that notion after applying for a promo even once, which is when any experiments with 20% usually cease. Exceptions are few and far between. To establish this for yourself, try to find if people around you promoted to Staff and above have any real 20% projects that are actually 20% projects, that is, that take substantial time. They don't.