Taking Your Work Home at ARTAVIA™
The commute to the office has gotten a lot shorter recently for many non-industrial workers. For many years, the trend toward working from home has been gathering momentum and recent factors have supercharged this evolution. For the residents of ARTAVIA™, which is located north of Houston near Conroe, this opportunity to avoid the commute and daily hassles of going to the office is really a blessing in disguise.
The developers of ARTAVIA™ designed and built a community nestled in the trees, with a peaceful winding parkway that leads to the community park – Dapple Park. A new home in ARTAVIA™ allows you to choose from some of the builder floor plans that include home offices, making it even easier to be productive at home.
Five Ways to be More Productive at a Home Office
A home office at ARTAVIA™ offers a relaxing setting that enables better productivity. However, for those who are used to the routine of working in a traditional office, getting accustomed to this new work environment requires some new habits. We have gathered a few “tips” from several sources, including this article.
- Get your technology in order.
Technology is critical to working from home. Make sure to take your laptop home and if you don’t have a work laptop, ask if your supervisor wants you to take your desktop computer home. Make sure you have the right software applications. Lots of remote workers are leaning heavily on Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom or GoToMeeting. Also, ensure that your internet bandwidth is robust enough to deal with these conferencing tools.
- The kids are home too.
If you have small children at home, get them up as you would normally do, but have activities that they can do without you (PBS, coloring books, games or distance learning sites). As cute as they are, having a little voice asking for orange juice in the middle of a phone strategy session with a client does not send the best message to co-workers and clients.
- Manage everyone’s expectations.
It’s important to ask your manager what the priorities are and to discuss how tasks will get done. For example, how are teams going to track projects they’re working on? How will they meet to discuss this? Will you all be connecting on Slack or email? Will there be standing meetings at a certain time to get everyone coordinated?
- Limit distractions – TV or not TV?
While it is tempting, do not leave the TV on during the day to “keep you company.” Even if you think knowing about the news of the world is part of your job, don’t do it. It’s a distraction trap. Plus, don’t do housekeeping during the workday. It takes time away from what you are supposed to be doing. Do cleaning and other chores when you would always do them if you went to the office – on the weekend or at night.
- Know when it’s quittin’ time.
When working from home, it’s easy to work around the clock. You’re there. The work’s there. What could possibly go wrong? Unless it’s a rare emergency, the best policy is to set a time when the workday is officially over.
Being More Productive at Home
If you would like to see why residents of ARTAVIA™ love working at home, contact us for more information.