作者：Kyle Kulyk

曾经，我过着井然有序的生活：每天早晨在规定的时间起床，穿上西装，开车到办公室工作。这样的生活持续了近十年，直到08年到09年的市场崩溃，我几乎赋闲待业。之后经济稳定下来，有趣的事发生了……

现在我作为Itzy Interactive的联合创始人，在家制作手机游戏。你一定认为从朝九晚五的上班族转变为SOHO一族是很简单的。没有上司监视你的工作情况了、没有规定的工作时间了、不用遵守公司的着装规定了、没有电话铃声此起彼伏了……然而，对我来说，从办公室常工变成SOHO生产机的转变并不顺利。

simpsons(from gamasutra)

有几条经验帮助我在家工作也能保持作为开发者的生产力和清醒的头脑，我认为我得与读者分享一下。我在制作我们的最新游戏《Vex Blocks》时养成了一些影响效率的习惯，那几条经验也再次提醒我可能犯的错误。

穿戴整齐再工作

你不会穿着运动裤和T裇就进办公室，即使这算不上不可接受，但你仍然不能这么做。过去有那么几天，我滚出被窝，一路蹒跚到办公室，但我发现我的效率比平时降低了，平时我总是起床后洗漱好，然后吃一顿营养的早餐，最后穿戴整整齐去上班。

我不是在说穿衣打扮，我只是在说，就像穿短裤这种事。这听起来大概有些像陈腔烂调了，但穿戴整齐会让你自我感觉良好，自我感觉良好又能提高你的效率。我本人除非洗漱穿戴好了，否则我不会觉得自己准备好了。

如果你还满足于穿着发白的背心工作一整天，让你那退休的邻居透过打开的窗户看得目瞪口呆，也许某天你可以试着洗漱干净，喷点身体喷雾，然后穿戴整齐，对比一下感觉有何不同。

有规律的工作时间

给自己制定规律的工作时间。在家工作的好处是，可以灵活地安排工作时间，但这并不意味着你不必制定工作时间。我发现有一份时间表可以大大提高工作效率和保持头脑清醒。

关系压力(from gamasutra)

对我而言，这就像按下了头脑中的某个开关。“工作时间到啦！”如果因为某些原因，我不能按时间表工作，即使坐在办公桌前，我也很难投入工作状态。我肯定行为学家可以佐证这一点。我确实觉得每天按时间表工作可以完成比“即兴”工作时更多的工作量。

另一个好处是，可以期待工作结束的家庭时间。听到孩子欢呼“爸爸可以陪我玩啦！”这种感觉真好。你不是机器，你不能成天运转。你必须有停下来的时候，关注你自己、你的朋友和家人。

另外，休息和按时吃午饭。每到中午，我的感觉就很糟糕。此时我的工作完成了，我感到脑中迷迷糊糊。午休让我从消耗殆尽、过度劳累的状态中解放出来，重获新生。

办公时间禁扰条例

如果你在家工作，最好能给你的家庭成员也制定一些基本条例。当你总是被宠物、父母、配偶、孩子等打扰时，你会很难做成什么事。我的妻子现在在家休产假，当她需要我帮助照看宝宝和两岁的儿子时，我能腾出手来，这种感觉不错，但我需要时间做自己的工作。

当一个蹒跚学步的孩子放在你膝盖上，吵着要看Elmo的视频（游戏邦注：Elmo是儿童电视节目“芝麻街”中的玩偶名字）时，你是无法工作的。所以，规定一个连续的时间段是必要的。目前为止，禁止打扰的工作时间制度在我家执行得相当好，甚至连我们任性的儿子也抓住了要领：爸爸的办公室门关着的时候，他就是在工作，过一会儿才能出来玩。现在，当我回办公室开始我一天的工作时，我的儿子甚至会挥手对我说“拜！”。

独立的工作环境和减少干扰

最好能指定专门的工作空间，即一个你可以开始和退出的“工作区”。我很幸运我在自己家有一间办公室。即使你没有，创造一个专门用于工作的独立空间也不错。你要努力不分心，这自然不必多说。

如果你是游戏玩家，又没有毅力控制自己不每天玩上个把小时的《魔兽世界》，那么也许你得有一台没有安装任何游戏的工作电脑，或者制作一个登录系统，禁止进入任何可能让你分心的程序。我的电脑只能用来工作，而游戏全都安装在游戏机上，这对我很管用，让我不会分心。

不要脱离人际交往

在办公室里忙碌地工作了一整天后，我觉得有件事不算是个问题但确实是个问题。从总是与别人打交道的工作到独自工作，这种转变有一点儿不和谐。一到周末，我就非常渴望人际交往，甚至到了有点儿疯狂的地步。

与团队的定时会谈有助于增强这个独自工作的工程师的存在感。与团队保持联系总是不坏的，甚至偶尔来次语音会议作为背景音也不错。

短期看来，这可能会妨碍效率，但长期看来，我觉得这可以防止我患上幽居病（游戏邦注：指因长期离群索居而引起的忧虑、烦躁等情绪，冬季尤甚）。时不时更换工作地点也很好。如果可以，带上你的笔记本电脑到当地的咖啡厅工作。另外，长期这样也会对你的工作效率有益。至少对我是如此。

在家办公第三天(from gamasutra)

在过去的一年半里，这些方法对我的SOHO工作经历很有帮助。但愿你也能从我的经验中受益。（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: How not to go insane while working from home

by Kyle Kulyk

[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday opinion piece, Itzy Interactive's Kyle Kulyk shares some general advice for indie developers working from home and wanting to stay productive.]

There was a time when my life was pretty structured. Up at a certain time every morning, into my suit, into the car and then into my office to manage clients’ money. So it went for nearly a decade until the market crash of 08/09 left me without a job in an industry that didn’t seem to be hiring until financial outlooks stabilized. Funny thing about that…

Now I help make mobile games from home as one of the co-founders of Itzy Interactive. You’d think the transition from a regular, office job to one working out of your home would be an easy one. No boss micromanaging you, no set hours, no dress-code, no phones ringing, etc. However, the transition from office peon to home office productivity machine wasn’t a smooth transition for me.

I thought I’d take a moment to share a few of the things that help my productivity as an indie developer working from home, and help retain my sanity while doing it. It’s also an exercise for me to reaffirm some of these things I may be slipping on as I fall into unproductive habits while work continues on our newest title, Vex Blocks.

For the love of god, put on some clothes

You wouldn’t walk into your office dressed in sweats and a t-shirt and even if this was acceptable, you probably still shouldn’t do it. There’s been a few days when I’ve rolled out of bed and stumbled into my office, but I’m never as productive as I am when awake, showered, had a good breakfast and dressed for work.

I’m not talking about dressing up, I’m mainly talking about things like…putting on pants. It may sound a bit clichéd, but feeling good about yourself makes you more productive, and until I’ve cleaned myself up and dressed first thing in the morning I just don’t feel like I’m ready somehow.

If you’re content to work in your tighty whities all day with the windows open and your retired neighbors aghast, maybe just try cleaning up one day, spraying on some Axe body spray and getting dressed to see how you feel in comparison.
Regular hours

Set yourself regular work hours. The nice thing about working from home is you can usually be flexible with your working hours, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still have set hours. I found that having a schedule was valuable for maintaining my sanity and improving my productivity.

For me, it’s like a switch flips on in my head. “Time for business!” If for some reason I find myself off my schedule, it’s hard for me to get into my work groove when I do sit down at my desk. I’m sure there’s some behavioral scientist somewhere that can back me up on this one, but I’ve really found keeping a regular, scheduled work day improves the amount I can accomplish compared to days when I just “wing it.”

It’s also nice to have that end time to look forward to as well, and having a family. It’s good to have that moment when “Daddy is available for play now!” You’re not a machine and you can’t work all the time. There needs to be a point where you can stop and focus on yourself, your friends and your family.

Also, take breaks and take a scheduled lunch. I’m terrible when it comes to this, and by the time my day is done my brain feels fuzzy. Taking a break keeps me from burning out, stressing out and helps me gain my bearings.
Office Rules

If you’re working from home, it’s also a good idea that you lay down some ground rules for the other occupants of your home. It’s hard to get anything done when you’re being interrupted by pets, parents, spouse, children, etc. My wife is currently at home on maternity leave, and it’s nice to be available if she needs assistance with the new baby or our 2-year-old son, but I need time to do my work.

You wouldn’t be able to work a regular office job with a toddler on your lap, yelling for Elmo videos, so it’s understandable that there needs to be generally uninterrupted work time. So far, having my family at home has worked out pretty well, with even our headstrong 2 year old grasping the concept that when Daddy’s office door is closed, he’s working and he’ll be able to play later. My son even says “Bye!” to me now and waves when I’m going into the office to start my work day.

Separate work environment and minimize distractions

It’s also useful to have a designated work space. A “zone of work” that you can enter and exit. For myself, I’m lucky enough to have an office in my home but even if you don’t it’s not a bad idea to create a separate space that’s specifically setup for work. Even though it should go without saying, make an effort to decrease distractions.

If you’re a PC gamer and you don’t have the willpower to not fire WoW up every couple of hours, then perhaps you need a work machine that doesn’t have any games installed, or create a unique login that doesn’t have access to programs you may find distracting. I find it useful for my PC to be work only while receiving my gaming fix on the consoles setup in our den. It’s helpful for me to have that separation.
Don’t limit human interactions

After working in a busy office, this is something that I didn’t think would be an issue but it was. I found the transition from always being in communication with others to working primarily by myself to be a bit jarring. By the end of the work week I found I craved human interaction; that I’d even go a little squirrely without it.

As I mentioned in previous blogs, regularly scheduled meetings with my team helps to break up the monotony of this lone programmer’s existence while keeping the team on task. It can never hurt to keep up communications with your team, even going so far as to have a voice chat session running in the background while working occasionally.

This may hinder productivity in the short-term, but in the long run I find it helps keep me from experiencing cabin fever. A change of venue from time to time couldn’t hurt either. If you can, take a laptop down to your local cafe and get some work done. Again, in the long run this will be beneficial to your working well being. At least it was for me.

These methods have all helped me over the past year and a half I’ve been working from home. Hopefully you find some of these useful as well. Cheers!(source:gamasutra)