Twenty Ways to Stay Productive When Working at Home
高效居家办公的20个方法
How do you stay productive when you are working at home by yourself?Although many people working from home enjoy the freedom and convenience, it ismuch easier to be lazy outside of a work environment. The flexibility ofworking at home gives you the potential to be far more productive, but it canbe a huge waste of time if you aren’t smart about it.
你是如何在一个人在家里办公时候保持高效的呢？尽管居家办公使人们享受到了自由和方便，可是在办公室以外的环境还是更容易使人变懒。家庭的宽松环境可以使你变得更加高效，但是如果不知道如何适当的利用的话则会变成浪费时间。
With running this blog and various other projects I usually end up workingat least 20-30 hours per week at home. That means answering hundreds of weeklye-mails, writing at least 3000 words per day, in addition to networking,research and various support tasks. Less than some, but enough to keep me busyin addition to work and school.
因为要运行这个博客以及一系列其他的项目，我每周都要在家中工作20-30个小时。这意味着要在家除了要做很多网络方面的工作，和研究以及一些支持任务，还要每周要回复成百上千封邮件，每天写超过3000个单词。这些工作和学习足以使我变得很忙。
Here are some strategies I’ve found effective for ensuring productivitywhen working at home. These apply whether you are working a paid job,freelancing, running a home business or you simply want to make headway on apersonal project.
以下是一些我发现的保持我在家也能高效工作的一些策略，这些策略适用于你在是一个职员，自由的作家，运行一个家庭公司，或者你只是想自己的个人项目能够取得进展。
Build a Work Ethic – Workplaces enforce discipline. Without a system of rules and supervisors breathing down your neck, you might find it hard to stick to your schedule. Make a mental note of your productivity and work ethic and set goals to improve it. If you only got 4 hours worth of work done yesterday, aim for 4.5 today.建立一个工作规范 –办公室通常会有一些强制的纪律。在没有一个系统的规则以及上级监管的环境下，你可能很难去执行自己的计划。制作一个使自己变得高效的工作规范，并且不断的改进他，时时提醒自己。如果你昨天只有效工作了4个小时，把今天的目标设为4.5小时。Don’t Overestimate Your Productivity – This is one of the lies people commit when they start working at home. You have eight hours to work, so you assume you will get eight hours of work done. Becoming really productive is possible, but it requires building a work-ethic. Start small and build up.不要高估你的工作效率 –这个是那些才开始在家中工作的人所常犯的一个错误。你工作日的工作时间是8小时，所以你假定你能够在8小时内将工作搞定。但是只有在你建立了工作规范的情况下，你才能和在办公室以一样高效。建议从小处做起，慢慢的建立自己的规范。Don’t Count the Low-Value Tasks – Determine what is most important and count that first. I’ve heard from home entrepreneurs that they work 10-12 hour days. But then I manage to see them making forum posts and lengthy e-mails. It makes you wonder what they consider work. Only count time from your extremely important and difficult tasks. Spending one hour writing a blog article or finishing several pages of my book is worth a dozen hours of answering e-mails.不要被琐事烦扰 –将那些最重要的事情挑出来，并且优先处理。我曾经听说居家创业者每天工作10-12个小时，可是我后来看到他们咋论坛发帖，处理那些又臭又长的邮件。这使人在想他们所认为的工作是什么。必须把你的时间用到那些困难并且重要的任务上。对于我来说花一个小时来写一篇博客，或者完成我新书中的几页文字比回答那些邮件有意义多了。Cut Out Distractions – Put yourself in a vacuum. Shut down every distraction possible. I always keep my door shut and locked if possible and I don’t use the internet unless I need to research a quote or image. Twitter, chat, e-mail and RSS are also definite no’s. I can understand the appeal, but you can get work done twice as fast without multitasking which will save you a few minutes to use those programs later.切除干扰源 –把你自己放到一个没人打扰的地方，将所有的可能使你分心的可能性排除。可能的话我一般会将我的门反锁，除非需要引用或者图片否则我不会用internet。Twitter，聊天工具，E-mail和RSS都是绝对禁止的。我可以理解这些东西的吸引力，可是如果你能在工作的时候戒除这些东西的干扰，你可以更有效的工作，为你后来用这些东西节约出一点时间。Start Early – Waking up early and start working right in the morning is a good idea. This doesn’t give you a chance to procrastinate. Plus it feels great to know you’ve finished eight hours of work at 2:00 or 3:00.一日之在于晨 –早起并且立即开始工作是一个不错的主意。这将使你避免拖延，而且如果你能在2:00或者3:00的时候就完成了一天的工作是一件感觉非常棒的事情。Know Thy Energy – Know when you are feeling drained and tired. My rule is simple. When I notice that my energy is slumped and I’m barely keeping my lids open I go for another ten minutes (sometimes lethargy is just a creativity block). If that doesn’t fix it, I take a short 5-10 minute break. Finally if that doesn’t work a longer breather might be necessary.劳逸结合 -知道自己什么时候累了。我的规则很简单，当我发现我累了的时候，我会闭上眼睛小憩10分钟（有时候疲劳是创造力的大敌），如果10分钟不够，我会再休息5-10分钟。如果还不能奏效的话，就需要休息更长的时间了。Learn to Say No – When you are working at home and have flexibility, this is the perfect opportunity for friends, family and associates to rip time away from you. Sometimes they will guilt you into doing things because, “they [unlike you] HAVE to work.” Be firm and don’t give them an inch. Don’t let people disrespect your time and learn to say, “No,” without an explanation.学会说不 –当你在家里工作而拥有方便性的时候，是你的朋友，家庭从你这里剥夺时间的一个很好的机会。有时他们使用“他们必须要…”,使你有了负罪感之后然后帮助他们。这个时候不能让步，并且不要让其他人不尊重你的时间，坚决的说”不“，不需要给出任何解释。Set Daily Goals – I don’t schedule tasks that don’t need to be. But I do write down exactly what I want to have accomplished by the end of the day tomorrow. Setting daily goals keeps you from feeling you need to do everything by splitting your workload into a manageable chunk.设定每日目标 –我从来不为那些没有必要设立时间表的任务设立时间表，可是我却将明天计划完成的事情明确的写下来。设定明确的每日目标可以使你分配出大块的时间来完成你想要完成的任务。Use Parkinsons Law – Parkinsons Law basically states that a task will expand to the time you give it. Crunch your workload by giving yourself only a few minutes to finish tasks where completion is more important than perfection.使用Parkinsons定律 –Parkinsons定律是说每个任务所实际消耗的时间总是超过计划的时间。将你的任务分割成可以在短时间内完成的小的任务片段，对于这些任务我们的目标时完成而不是使之完美。Learn to Churn – What happens when you get writers/programmers/designers block? Learn to churn out content. This means that once you run out of ideas, you tell yourself that your goal is volume not quality. Tell yourself that you will redo it later if it is too horrible. The truth is, usually the quality is decent and you get back to normal after a few minutes of churning.学会坚持 –当作家、程序员、设计师遇到阻碍的时候怎么做？学会坚持！当你出现思维枯竭的时候，你就告诉自己我要的是数量不是质量，或者说现在不坚持做，后面再做将是一件可怕的事情。事实是，你坚持了，最后质量也还可以，在你坚持了一段时间过后就回归平常状态了。Create a Professional Space – Your environment should make you feel like working. If it doesn’t, it’s time to redecorate. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but if working at home only makes you feel like playing computer games, you need a change of scenery.创造一个专业的环境 –你的家庭环境应该让你感觉到你是在工作的，如果不是的话，现在就重新装饰一下吧。不必标新立异，但是如果你的家庭环境让你感觉好像是在玩电脑游戏，你就该改变了一下了。Set Work Hours – Don’t confuse work with life. Set your working hours to maximize your productivity when working and to keep work where it belongs. I have frequently set vague limits on my work time which only served to make me an unproductive workaholic.设定工作时间 –不要把工作和生活搅和在一起。设定你的工作时间，并且在这段时间中最大化你的工作效率，工作的时候只是工作。我经常把我的工作时间定义的不是非常的清楚，但是这只能导致我工作的低效率。What’s Your MIT? – Always know what your Most Important Task is.Leo at ZenHabits recommends putting your MIT first so you won’t procrastinate. Even if the rest of the day is unproductive, your day was still valuable if you get that task done.清楚什么才是最重要的？ -永远知道什么才是你最重要的事情。Leo在他的7个习惯当中建议“要事第一“的原则，所以对于重要的事情请不要拖延。即使你在做完重要的事情之后变得不再高效，你的一天也是有价值的。Have a Social Life – Working from home often eliminates a lot of your social life. Join groups and activities like Toastmasters to meet people more easily and reclaim a social network that may have been entirely located in the office. Without people, your energy is shot. I’ve managed to work through some bouts of isolation, but I don’t consider it the ideal.参加社会活动 –在家中办公将是你的社交活动减少。所以参加一些团体和活动将把你带入到社会的网中去，就像上班的时候一样。没有了别人的帮助，你的能力就会被限制。我曾经独立的工作过一段时间，但是我不认为这个是一个理想的过程。Vary Your Tasks – If you went to the gym, could you just do pushups for an hour straight? Probably not. So if you are a writer or programmer, is your ideal method to write or code for ten hours straight? I like to split up different tasks throughout the day so I can use different mental “muscles.” This keeps me fresh and productive without the need for long breaks.使你的工作多样化 –当你在健身房健身的时候，你可以坚持举重一个小时吗？当然不是！当你是作家或者程序员的时候你认为连续10小时的写作或者编码是一个理想的方法吗？我喜欢将一天中安排几个不同的任务，好让我的脑力的不同部分都得到工作和休息。这使我在无需长时间休息的情况下保持新鲜感和高效性。Boredom before Quitting – When I don’t like any of the ideas I’ve saved up in my notepad to write about I frequently go through a period of doing nothing for five or ten minutes until I get a new idea. If this happens to you, resist the temptation to go online or do something else. Even if you could postpone your work hours, stick it through another ten or fifteen minutes.在厌倦之前休息 –当我不喜欢我在记事本上写下的任何点子的时候，我经常会在我得到新想法之前休息5-10分钟。如果这个也在你身上发生的话，请拒绝上网或者做点什么其他的诱惑。甚至你可以将你的工作延迟一段时间，然后坚持将其做完。Get Outside Perspectives – When you are isolated, you can often get stuck in one perspective that makes it hard to solve problems. Build up a network (particularly online) of people you can contact when you hit a road-block. I know several people that I can bounce ideas off when my own solutions come short.获得局外人的观点 –在被隔离的情况下，你常常会坚持一个视角，这通常很难解决问题。尝试建立一个社交网络（特别是在线的网络），当你遇到障碍的时候可以去寻求帮助。我就认识好几个可以帮助我在大脑短路的时候激荡思想的人。Give Yourself Overtime – If you are really involved in a project, working an extra hour to finish a section before wrapping up for the day is fine. Compensate yourself the next day with a reduced workload so you don’t start letting your workday expand to fill all your waking moments.给自己的生活充裕的时间 –如果你确实因为工期很紧而为了完成一个独立的部分而多工作了一个小时也没有问题，第二天给自己减轻一点工作量，这样你就不会因为工作时间的日益膨胀而占据你越来越多的生活时间。The Extra 15 – When you get stuck or feel a strong urge to quit, just commit to do an extra fifteen minutes of work. Usually this is enough to carry you out of the slump and move forward. If it isn’t then you probably need a break.另外的15分钟 – 当你感觉遇到了障碍或者强烈的休息的冲动，坚持在做15分钟。通常这足以让你从失败的消沉中走出来，并且取得进展。如果还不行的话，你可能确实需要休息一下了。Utilize Your Flexibility – Take advantage of your extra flexibility. This can mean making adjustments in your work schedule to take on new opportunities or fitting work around your life. When good opportunities come up, take them and commit to compensate later. This requires a bit more discipline, but it is one of the best advantages of working from home.利用你的灵活性 - 利用你的额外的灵活性。你可以调整你的工作时间表，在你的周边找一个好的机会或者是适合的工作。当一个好的机会来临的时候，接受他们，然后找机会来补偿原来的工作。这个需要一点点的原则，但是这个确实在家工作的一个优势。If you liked this post, why not help me out by giving it adel.icio.ustag?
