作者：Chad Moore

我接受了一个有关游戏开发的客座文章。感谢Joshua Becker给我提供为他的博客编写文章的机会，帮助我发表文章。

在我的工作和个人生活中，我思考了很多有关单任务、专注和分神的问题。以下是我认为4个导致我们在创造性工作中分神的因素。

顺便说下，这里的“创造性工作”包含美术、编程、设计和音乐等。游戏开发中许多方面和岗位都具有创造性，所以我认为以下问题存在于任何创造性活动中。

1、我们因通知而分神

每个人都总是保持与他人联系的状态。我们整天开着邮箱和内部即时通信客户端，更不用提外部的社交网络和IM闲聊。现在，我们在任何时间和地点都会看到即时通知，包括我们坐在工作桌前和外出的时候。

即便在不需要的时候，多数人都会保持数字通信状态。我们处在不断接收推送或动作任务的状态中，因而也就很容易受到打扰和分神。我们要如何处理这个问题呢？

有些研究甚至发现，我们已经对收到邮件或推文的那种感觉上瘾。这便是我们在外出甚至驾驶汽车时会不断查看手机的原因。多数人同意，这种短时间的打断正在改变我们的大脑。

你能否在不受通知影响下阅读完这篇近1500字的文章呢？

2、我们因地域而分神

办公室的现状是整个团队做在一起。这样的设计是为了“加强交流”。比如，美术人员可以很容易地问程序员问题。

这对问题的立时解决确实很有帮助，但是我们在完成创造性任务时需要更加专注地工作。不断受打扰会影响到我们的工作效率。即时交流难道真的比专注于工作更加重要吗？

打扰只会影响工作，而不会提供帮助。

3、我们自身的问题

就分神这个问题，我们如何才能在创造性任务上保持专注？精神背景的转换很难衡量，因为存在很多变数。但是，我曾经听说过，在3个任务间转换会浪费40%的可用工作时间。你可以先将部分不重要的任务弃之不顾。

你的公司是否频繁召开会议？工作日期间的会议会对工作效率产生极大的影响，简直就是创造力的杀手。

多任务对创造性工作没有好处。在你的工作日内，是否能够就单个任务毫无打扰地开展1个多小时呢？

4、我们的安逸和忧虑

安全是众人普遍追求的目标。安全是没有冲突和挑战。安全是一遍遍重复相同的事情。安全是不标新立异。安全不利于你的创造性工作，因而也不利于你开展的项目。

以下是我用来或努力实现与分神和多任务抗争的方法：

控制时间

批次处理邮件是更为高效的做法。可以将时间安排在每天工作的开始前和结束后。这比频繁转向outlook查看新通知和邮件要更有效率。

如果你觉得这样做会让联系人等待的时间过长，那么可以每两个小时花10分钟来处理邮件。或者制定适于你自己的计划，只是不要让通知打扰工作即可。如果真有紧急的事情，你会知道的，因为会有人过来找你。

关闭你的工作IM。规则与上述相同。或者只在下午保持IM在线。或者将状态设置为免打扰。尝试各种不同的方法，选用效果较好的方法。

每次做一件事情。罗列出当天需要完成的3到5件重要的事情。尽可能在当天优先完成（游戏邦注：先完成重要任务，剩下的工作就会变得简单）。

如果你的习惯是立即对通知做出反应，那么以上这些技巧刚开始使用时可能会觉得很麻烦，但是我相信它们会给你带来丰厚的回报。你有了更多不会被打扰的时间，可以用来更好地完成工作。如果需要的话，在执行这些重大改变前，先告知经理和主管。

召开最高效的会议

团队的早晨起立可能是最好的会议方式。时间是每天早晨，不是工作期间。每个人都可以说说他们正在开展的工作、是否遇到障碍和问题以及接下来要做什么。最好每个人都站起来。毕竟，它叫做“早晨起立”。

消除所有你认为是在浪费时间的会议。会议议程和综述是很不错的会议工具。

议程：在计划召开会议时，先罗列将要讨论的话题，确定负责每个话题的人，估计他们需要花费的时间。在会议召开前数天，预先将议程发送给与会者，让他们做好准备。Simon Cooke建议以问题的形式来编写议程，这样才能引发人们思考。

在会议过程中，遵守会议议程。召开会议，解决完议程所涉问题，然后就结束会议。

综述：简单陈述需要讨论的内容。

以下是一个会议议程范例：

时间，Galactic Domination会议议程

1、概述，Palpatine，15分钟

2、Death Star #2结构状况，Tarkin，5分钟

3、各种力量影响因素，Vader，10分钟

综述范例：

1、概述，Palpatine，15分钟

（1）通过摧毁秘密基地来镇压造反

（2）通过政治活动来解决Galactic Senate

2、Death Star #2结构状况，Tarkin，5分钟

我们修正了排气口和水雷上的漏洞

3、各种力量影响因素，Vader，10分钟

（1）Obi-Wan死了，但是没有人能够确定他为何消失了

（2）随从计划将天行者之子转变为黑暗势力

等待

你能学会等待吗？看看美术人员，他正戴着耳机（游戏邦注：在开发过程中这暗示着“请勿打扰”），显然正专注于用显示器上的大量参考图片构建3D模型应用。不要打扰他，让他专注于完成他的任务。

当你看到用户界面工程师不断地在开发工具包和双显示器电脑之间来回，这就表明她正在调试电脑上UI的漏洞并进行测试，显然她很忙碌。不要走上前去询问工作的进展情况。让她专注于完成工作。

你总会有提出问题的机会，但是你需要等待合适的时机。

告知他人

用团队信号来告知他人“请勿打扰”。我曾经见过有美术人员在自己的桌上摆上小旗子，标明过多长时间再过来找他。我也见过有技术团队成员在自己的帽子上标明，自己当天能够随时为他人提供帮助。

找到向他人传达信息的方法，教会他人识别和尊重这种信息。在团队中传播这种方法，整个团队的工作也会变得更有效率。

保护行业最有价值的资产

对任何公司来说，最有价值的资产便是人力资源，是那些完成艺术、技术和游戏设计工作的人，那些为游戏提供支持或负责游戏制作的人。每天都有一段适合进行创造性工作的时间，其他时间适合用来完成创造性较低的任务。努力减少工作障碍，必要时寻求管理人员的帮助。

诚然，解决方案不止这些。但是，我喜欢的是一次同一个人交流、处理一个问题和加工一个想法。这些都是我努力将简单化和单任务融入个人和工作生活中的措施。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Opinion: Four reasons we’re not as good as we could be

Chad Moore

I’ve adapted a guest post I wrote over at becoming minimalist to speak more to game development. Thanks to Joshua Becker for the opportunity to write for his blog and his help with the original post.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to single tasking, focus and distractions in my professional and personal life. Here is what I believe to be the four biggest factors contributing to distracting us from doing great creative work.

By the way, ‘creative work’ to me means art, code, design, music you name it. Many facets and roles in game dev are creative, perhaps not at first glance, but any creative problem solving applies, in my humble opinion.

#1 We’re distracted by notifications

Everyone is ‘always on.’ We have our email open all day and internal instant messaging clients humming – not to mention the external social networks and IM chats. Instant notifications are being pushed from everywhere to wherever we are at the moment, sitting at our desktops or walking about with our phones.

Most of us are on digital leashes of some kind even when we don’t need to be. We’re in a state of constant multiple deliverables or actionable tasks as well as completely open to distractions. How do we get anything done?

Some studies even propose that people can be addicted to the micro-endorphin rush we get when we get an email or a tweet. That’s why we can’t stop checking our phones when we’re away from work or even when we’re driving. Most folks agree that these short bursts of interruptions are changing our brains.

Can you read through this entire 1500 hundred word post without a notification going off?

#2 We’re distracted by geography

Office geography has the entire team sitting in cube farms. These close-knit cubes are designed to ‘enhance communication.’ For example, artists can quickly look over the half-wall and ask a programmer a question.

This is great for immediate problem solving, however, the creative tasks we perform require dedicated and focused work in order to be fully realized. The constant interruptions hinder our productivity. What’s the tradeoff? Does the immediate communication outweigh the lack of focus?

Interruptions are hurting productivity, not helping it.

#3 We can’t focus

In this land of distractions, how do we concentrate long enough on a creative task to produce quality? Mental context switching is hard to quantify as there are so many variables. However, I have heard that switching between 3 tasks costs a person 40 percent of their available work time. You can just throw (at least) one of those tasks out the window, I hope it wasn’t important.

Does your company have a lot of meetings? Meetings in the middle of the day can be a drastic productivity and creativity killer.

Multi-tasking just doesn’t work. Is there a ‘sweet spot’ in your workday that you can work uninterrupted for more than an hour on a single task?

#4 We’re comfortable and afraid

Our lizard brains want us to be stuck in a rut. Safety is the Lizard Brain’s primary objective. Safe is free of conflicts and challenges. Safe is the same thing over and over again. Safe is not standing out in the crowd. Safe, as the lizard brain defines it, is not good for your creativity and thereby the projects you work on.

Here are some of the things that I’m using or trying out to combat the lizard brain, distractions and multi-tasking.

Control your time

Batch processing your email can be effective. Once at the beginning of the day and again at the end. This is more efficient than shifting to outlook with each new notification and processing each single email.

If you think that is too long to be out of contact, do the email dance for 10 minutes every two hours. Or whatever works for you, just try to keep the notifications off. If there truly is an emergency, you will know, someone will come find you.

Turn off your work IM. Same rules as above. Maybe you’re available and on IM only in the afternoon. Or set your status to do not disturb and teach people politely what that means. Try things and see how they work for you.

Do one thing at a time. Make a list of the 3 or 5 most important things for that day. Do them as early in the day as you can. You’ll accomplish the ‘big things’ early and everything else after that is icing on the cake.

All of this can be tricky at first if your culture wants you to respond immediately, but I think it pays off in the end. You have more uninterrupted time to do something good. Talk to your manager if you need to before implementing a radical change.

Have the good kind of meetings

The morning standup with your team is probably the best type of meeting. It’s early, not in the middle of the day. Everyone says what they are working on, if anything is blocking them and what they’ll do next. Preferably everyone stands. It is called a stand up after all.

This is a bold choice, but decline any meeting that you think is a waste of time. Reply that you can’t make it and ask for a recap. Meeting Agendas and Recaps are such a great tool for meetings, we seem to forget about them.

The Agenda: When booking the meeting provide a list of what topics to discuss, who is responsible for talking for each topic and a guesstimate on how long they’ll have to talk. Send the agenda out a couple of days beforehand and make it known that the attendees are expected to be prepared. Simon Cooke suggests formulating the agenda as questions to get people thinking and vested.

During the meeting, stick to the schedule. Get in, do good stuff, get out.

The Recap: briefly state what was discussed.

Here’s a sample meeting agenda:

Todays Date, Galactic Domination Meeting Agenda

Overview, Palpatine, 15 minutes

Death Star #2 construction status, Tarkin, 5 minutes

Various disturbances in the force, Vader, 10 minutes

And the recap:

Overview, Palpatine, 15 minutes

Squash rebellion by destroying secret base.

Eliminate Galactic Senate via political maneuvering.

Death Star #2 construction status, Tarkin, 5 minutes

We fixed the exhaust port / proton torpedo bug

Various disturbances in the force, Vader, 10 minutes

Obi-Wan is dead, but no one is sure why he just disappeared.

Follow up on plan to turn Son of Skywalker to the dark side.

Wait

Can you wait a while to talk to the artist? Look at him, he has his headphones on (game developer code for ‘Do Not Disturb’) and is obviously ‘in the zone’ sculpting in the 3D modeling application with a ton of reference images on the other monitor. Don’t interrupt him asking for his hours spent this week on his tasks. Let him do his job.

That User Interface Engineer who’s sliding her chair back and forth from her development kit and her two-screen computer rig? She’s fixing a bug in the UI on her computer, testing it on the kit, and she’s obviously busy. Do not walk over and ask her how it’s going right now. Let her do her job.

Your opportunity to ask your question will come… but you may need to wait your turn to ask it.

Get people on board

Use team signals to tell others ‘do not disturb.’ I’ve seen flags put up by artists to denote when they are in the zone and to please come back later. I’ve also seen tech teams have one team member wear a hat signaling that he/she is the person on call for help that day.

Find a way of signaling people and teach them to recognize and respect it. Work it out with your team so you can be efficient together.

Protect your industry’s most valuable asset

The most valuable asset any company has are its people. People make the art, tech and design of a game. They support the game or the other people making the games. There are certain parts of the day when creativity runs wild and other parts of the day that are more suitable for less creative tasks. Do what you can to help reduce roadblocks and ask your Manager for support.

I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I’m trying to communicate with one person at a time, handle one problem at a time, and work on one idea at a time. All as a part of my effort to bring the principles of minimalism, simplicity and single tasking into my personal and professional life. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these topics. (Source: Gamasutra)