The GameTextures Way…
…of staying sane and productive while working from home
I woke up this morning at around 6:45 am. It was a bit after my alarm, but I was up a little late playing Divinity: Original Sin II with my Dungeons and Dragons crew, so I wanted to snooze a little. We haven’t been able to meet the past few weeks and we want to keep up our weekly game time as much as possible. Divinity has been a way to do that.
As I got out of bed and started to put on clothes to get ready for the day, my dog followed me out of the bedroom with a forceful jump off the bed. She was ready for the day to start and play time to begin.
I am not ready until coffee number two.
I shuffled downstairs, started coffee, and grabbed one of my wife’s home made doughnuts (baking has been one of her quarantine hobbies). I turned on the news and caught the latest statistics on Covid-19, the current Novel Coronavirus strain that’s put a full stop on many parts of the world economy.
The world has passed 1.4 Million confirmed cases and 400,000 of them are from the US (30.7%). The GDC from Home article’s statistics have not aged well. That was less than a month ago. (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)
I ate breakfast (including two of the previously pictured homemade doughnuts), downed coffee number one, and agreed with the dog that it was time for a walk. Time for the day to begin.
Covid-19 has thrown much of the world into turmoil. Across the globe, large and small companies are being forced to improvise work from home setups. In some cases, game studios are sending employees home with their work computers. Others are setting up Remote Desktop Servers, allowing for workers to remote in from home. Colleges are figuring out how to leverage technology to teach online, and while some classes will face an easy transition, others requiring expensive equipment or large spaces and green screens will face difficulty in running properly. Those of us not on the front lines of the pandemic are being asked to do our part by remaining in our homes as much as possible, and this means converting our bedrooms, living rooms, dining tables, and patios into office spaces for the foreseeable future.
Some may enjoy and thrive in this new environment. Others will miss being able to walk around an office and mingle with co-workers or can’t find focus at home. We at GameTextures have a mostly distributed team across the US and have had great success in working remotely since the start of the company. With the wealth of experience much of our team has in working from home, we decided to gather some stories and ideas from across the company and share them with everyone who has joined the remote working army. We hope you find your time working with us manageable, if not enjoyable at times and wish everyone the best of luck. We’ll get thought his together.
Dan Rose: GT Features Writer, Freelance Artist, Assistant Teaching Professor at Drexel University
I started working from home in a full-time capacity at the end of 2013. I snagged a few freelance jobs while I was looking for work at the time and they just kept coming. I continued working remotely, from home for a variety of clients until I started at Dreamline Shower Doors in the summer of 2018.
On a personal level, I enjoyed working from home as a freelancer. I am very mindful of the time I have throughout the day, in part due to the freelance lifestyle I led where time I’m not working on something is generally time I’m wasting. Although I transitioned away from freelancing in 2018, that mindset of ‘time is valuable’ has never left. I always have projects I want to work on, so having short commutes and freedom of time and schedule is important to me. I also find it far easier to focus on my work when I have few people around me and the environment is quiet. Six hours of me working from home is usually close to 8 hours of me working in an office.
I learned a lot in my time working remotely for clients and I have taken it and adjusted it to match my current situation as a full-time professor and part time freelancer. Drexel University has moved it’s classes online for the spring quarter and I will give my students the same exact experience they would get as if we were all in the class room, minus the true physical presence of being in a class room.
Tips I can give to help others adjust to working remotely from home come from both my own experiences and the experiences of those who have been working from home before me, including Jon Jones (Jon Jones the Outsource Artist/Shotgun Administrator extraordinaire, not the coked up UFC fighter). I’ve included a link to some of his talks later in the article.
1. Always maintain as consistent a schedule as you can. Instead of rolling out of bed right at 9 am and signing on to your work accounts while still half asleep, wake up as if you still had to eat, commute, and work out. Why change what your brain is used to.
2. Before you start work in the morning, get out and walk. It can be a short, 15 minute stroll or the nearly 30 minute commutes I have started to do with my dog in the morning. What matters is that you take the time to get up and move about while also performing a “mini commute” that gets your head ready to take on the day.
3. Find a place in your home that you can make all about your work. That is your working spot and your working spot only.
4. I have found that an organized work space makes for a less cluttered mind. Organize your work space and remove as much clutter as possible.
5. If you are using a personal machine and remoting in to work (or just using a personal machine in general), it can be helpful to create a separate user account that only has access to your work programs.
The Covid-19 outbreak has created some unique shifts in my daily schedule, but in some ways it’s brought me back to a schedule that is similar to what I had in 2015/2016 when I was working almost exclusively remotely. I had been waking up at 6:30 AM and hitting the gym before starting my day for the last six months or so. I’m now waking up at roughly the same time, but because the gym is closed and my dog, Summer, needs a lot of activity, I’ve taken to having breakfast and taking her out on 30 minute walks before I start my day. I’ve continued to keep fit by working out at home at 4 pm, my old workout time from high school and much of my freelance career. It’s been a nice change up if I’m honest, although I can’t wait for the gym to reopen so I can move heavy weight again.
It’s taken Summer a little while to adjust to my wife and I being home all the time. First we were interrupting her daily nap time. That transitioned quickly to her wanting to play with us every moment we were around. Thankfully, she’s getting the idea that even though we’re home every day now, my wife and I can only play in the mornings and evenings, with a little love tossed in the middle of the day too.
Catch Jon’s GDC Talk on ‘Cutting the Cord and Working Remotely’ below!
Mike Haggerty, Community Manager and Support Specialist at GameTextures
I started working from home somewhere between 2014 and 2015. I transitioned from an internship at GameTextures to a full time position and it remained remote. Working from home, for me, was a huge shift as I had never done anything like it before; I had been a blue collar worker that jumped in and out of jobs with no long term plans. That isn’t to say I didn’t have a solid work ethic, and that is likely the most important aspect of working from home. A good work ethic will keep your nose to the grindstone even when your Steam Library is right next to your Blender and Zbrush icons on your taskbar.
I felt far less productive working from home at first, but then I really thought about the work I was actually doing while on-site and realized that much of it was time filling tasks in the name of “productivity”. Today, I feel like I am extremely productive. I have the tasks that I know need to be done for the benefit of the company and I arrange them in a way that is advantageous for both myself and GameTextures and I get them done.
It has been a weird trip if we are being honest. Working in PJs is fine and good, but I have found that making sure that I get up, brush my teeth, and make a choice morning beverage is very important to setting the tone for the day. I have to pick a time in the morning that I will wake up for every single time. These days it’s about 8:30 AM, it has shifted from 7 AM to 8:30 AM a few times and will likely shift back. I like to get up and moving at 7 AM but my sleep cycle does not always agree.
I recognize that I have excellent self-moderation, I rarely ever think “it’s just one more match of Rocket League” but I know others will struggle with the temptation to game or whatnot while working. There are a ton of good tools for locking yourself out of certain things on your computer. Take a look at them if you find yourself struggling. With that in mind though, if you are hitting a wall somewhere or find the current state of the world incredibly distressing, TAKE that one match of Rocket League or a single battle in World of Warships, a hunt in Monster Hunter World and just make sure to shut it down afterwards. I have found that taking short, “brain breaks” like this has increased productivity overall immeasurably because you come back to the task you had with a bit of the frustration vented and mayhaps fresh eyes. Keep yourself on a schedule, even if it is just a few stone set tasks in your life. I wake up at 8:30 and make myself tea, brush my teeth. I go for a long walk at 5 PM. These are my mooring posts for my day that help me frame my work.
Matt Dirks, Senior Material Artist at GameTextures
I started working from home in the winter as I was planning on looking for a house in Spokane. I wanted to be closer to family, and prices for housing were much better than where I was before.
My productivity hasn’t changed much. I think getting or maintaining a routine is important, right now I wake up, work out, shower and then get dressed for work (as if I was going into the office). If I need more energy I start with a small breakfast.
Covid-19 has made socializing difficult, but you can find ways to stay sane. Outside of work, try to connect with friends and family through video games. Discord allows streaming so you can play various games or watch movies and TV shows together. I recently played Jackbox 3 with friends over Discord and it was really fun!
Keegan Keene, Material Artist at GameTextures
Working from home has been perfect for me because I can take breaks whenever I find I need them, allowing me to refresh my mind. I also get to have a lot of control over when I work, and I value that. What I seem to struggle with has to do with wasting the final few hours of the day; if I work too long without remembering to take a break the last few hours of my day are wasted.
Tanner Kalstrom, Founder and CEO of GameTextures
Starting GameTextures was simultaneously the most difficult, and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. It was always my goal to create a job that allowed myself and others around me to have the lifestyle of their choice. To achieve that, I needed to have options.
Going to offices has never been my favorite thing, I always found them stifling and, as an individual that suffers from ADHD, I found it mentally exhausting to stay a focused worker while there. I was bothered enough that I used to arrive super early and stay super late just so I could get a little quiet time where I could focus and not be distracted by all of the sights, sounds and shiny things around me.
Eight years ago I realized that if I were to have any happiness in this world, I would have to figure out a way to make it for myself. That meant finding (or creating) a job where I could work from the comfort of my home, or the comfort of a co-working space when necessary. Over that time, I’ve found some very important routines and methods that I would like to share with you which I’ve used to maximize productivity and keep my general sanity.
Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s nothing new! It’s the same stuff we’ve been hearing all our lives. When I realized this, it completely re-framed my world.
1. Walk every single day. Get out and walk. I live in Seattle, where it’s rainy and dreary 9 months of the year. If I can convince myself to get out and walk in the morning through the rain and mucky muck, then you can too.
2. Eat light. On top of the nutritional benefits of eating lighter, lower fat meals, I found that my productivity took a massive slam if I ate something dense. Being at home, I can control exactly the food I have around me, which is something that I could never seem to do in a studio space.
3. In line with the previous point, make sure you surround yourself with healthy snacks. There’s nothing wrong with snacking and, in fact, to snack is one of my absolute favorite hobbies. Alas, it can be terrible if you’re eating the wrong things. Stock up on carrots if you like crunchy foods and hummus if you enjoy the dunk & scoop.
4. Realize that some days will be better than others, and that they all will even out. My only goal each day is to do at least 6 hours of real work. Anything beyond that is a bonus and can be celebrated. Likewise, I try to expect only six hours of creative work a day from the artists around me.
5. Find your blinders. Yeah. Like a horse. I am absolutely useless without my blinders, which are a closed office door and a nice set of headphones. I usually don’t even listen to anything on them. The act of putting them on helps me to focus on the task at hand and I’m not terribly sure why. Give it a try!
6. Keep a clean space. Dan mentions this above, but the most important thing I do every evening when it’s quitting time is clean up and organize my space. This includes:
a. Wiping down my desk with disinfectant wipes and wiping away any dust or crumbs that have accumulated during the day.
b. Putting away all of my pens, notebooks and sticky notes.
c. Organizing where my various desk accouterments are positioned (I don’t know why, It just makes me feel better).
d. Generally making sure my space is absolutely the least stressful part about my morning the next day.
Keeping a clean and organized space will help you in so many ways that it’s impossible for me to describe. Build a space that you enjoy being in, and you will not feel the stress of “coming to the office” each day.
Above everything else, make sure you come to work with a plan to actually work. Know what you’re working on, what your goals are for the day or week, and take one step at a time to getting to them. Most days, I find that I can do what I did in an 8–10 hour day in an office in 5–6 hours from home, and I’m relatively lazy.
As it closed in on 4 pm, I looked over my Trello Board and checked one more asset that I completed in record time. That asset pack is just about out the door. I skimmed my university emails one more time and took a minute to answer a student’s question. I had accomplished quite a bit during the day and knew that this was a great stopping point. It was time to clear the mind of work with physical activity and heavy metal.
The work day is over.
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and wear a face cover of some kind when you’re out in a public space and can’t keep a safe distance from everyone (like a grocery store or to pick up food). We here at GameTextures are hoping that you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy during this trying time.
