Whether you’re working from home, co-working at a local WeWork, or commuting to a traditional workplace, finding the right work/life balance is never easy. For some, these realms can overlap considerably, especially during the pandemic when so many have transitioned to working from home. As a property management company, our management staff has seen a wave of residents transitioning to work-from-home setups either temporarily or permanently, which can make it more difficult to achieve your ideal work/life balance. These are the tips we’ve gathered that can help you make the most of your time and live a happier, healthier life.

Understand Ebbs & Flows

Firstly, it’s important to determine whether you’ve got a chronic or an acute problem on your hands. Life and work will both have regular ebbs and flows; there may be busy seasons and slow seasons, or emergencies may come up. Understand that there will likely be times when work and life are out of balance, but that’s okay on occasion. What’s important is that you have the balance you want on a larger scale.

Manage Your Technology

In the age of smartphones, we’re always connected to both work and personal life, if we choose to be. Often that constant connection actually makes it harder to focus on the task at hand. But luckily there are plenty of ways to manage technology to ensure you’re focusing only on what you need to focus on. Don’t be afraid to adjust your notifications, email forwarding, and calendar settings to help you attend to what’s important now and compartmentalize what can wait until later. That might mean turning off mobile notifications for your work email or messaging outside of normal work hours or ensuring that only important personal emails are able to reach you at work while more trivial ones are ignored.

Take Advantage of Your Paid Time Off

Most folks are much happier when they take regular vacations and stay home when sick. Ensure you’re taking advantage of all your Paid Time Off each year if you’re able. If your PTO rolls over, you might be tempted to save it up to use all at once, but bear in mind that shorter, more frequent vacation time could make you even happier than a single, extended break. Assess your short-term and long-term needs and plan accordingly.

Set Boundaries and Work Hours

Work and personal life will seep into each other if you let them. Coworkers will send emails in your off-hours, or you’ll remember you needed to buy a new sweater while you’re working on something you’d rather not be doing. Setting boundaries (and communicating them to others) helps ensure you’re focusing your attention and making the most of your work and personal time by not constantly context-switching between them.

That’s it for our tips on creating good work/life balance! If you found this post useful or interesting, we encourage you to share it with your friends and colleagues! If you want to find your ideal home at one of our RPM communities across the US, check out our Communities page.

From our years of experience as a property management company, we’ve seen our residents put together some truly amazing kitchens in our apartment communities across the US. We love seeing how each resident makes their space their own, but we’ve also noticed that some gadgets and appliances tend to feature in more of our residents’ kitchens than others. These top five kitchen gadgets are some of our favorites for apartment dwellers, inspired by what’s most popular among our awesome residents! These five gadgets can save you time in the kitchen and allow you to be more adventurous in your cooking.

InstantPot

There’s a reason everyone was raving about the InstantPot when it first hit the shelves. This one appliance easily replaces your slow cooker, rice maker, pressure cooker, and yogurt maker (if you even have those other appliances to begin with). It makes cooking almost anything way easier and it’s perfect when you don’t have much time to throw a meal together. Plus, with just one appliance instead of several, you’ll save counter space and storage space in your apartment kitchen.

Air Fryer

If you know someone with an air fryer, you probably know that they’re obsessed with it. These kitchen gadgets make it easy to fry meats and veggies to the perfect crispiness while using less oil and creating less mess.

Ice Cream Maker

Homemade ice cream is easier than you think, and it can be so much fun! Having an automatic ice cream maker at home is an easy way to enhance your summers and keep competing tastes happy (if you’ve got people who don’t agree on ice cream flavors living in your apartment). Nothing is more fun than creating a new flavor combination in your ice cream maker on a hot summer day and having it turn out to be amazing.

Electric Kettle

Boiling water doesn’t have to be tedious. An electric kettle is a must-have for coffee and tea lovers, quick meals like instant mac and cheese and ramen, or even when you just want to speed up the process of boiling water for pasta.

Kitchen Scale

If you don’t have a kitchen scale already, you might be surprised at how much this cheap little gadget can up your cooking game. Having one is essential for baking (where precise measurements are key), but it can also help in a plethora of other ways. For example, it assists in following recipes that don’t use imperial measurements like the cup and quart. And since a product’s density can be variable, measurements done by weight are always more precise than measurements by volume. That means no matter what you’re making, a kitchen scale is likely to help.

With these five kitchen gadgets, cooking and entertaining at your apartment will become one of your favorite activities! We hope we’ve helped inspire you to create your ideal kitchen at one of our communities! If you want to shop RPM communities across the US, make sure to check out our Communities page!

Are you looking to get more involved in your community? Although many residents of our luxury apartments in South Austin work hard every day to support themselves and their families, many of these same residents also go the extra mile and regularly volunteer, donating their time and energy to deserving Austin organizations that make our community in South Austin and beyond a positive environment to live in. How incredible is that?

Like many of our awesome residents, our teams at RPM Living often donate their time and money through RPM Serves. RPM Serves is our team’s way of helping to give back to our communities by supporting organizations that help create a sense of home and community for those in need. In past years, we’ve partnered with amazing organizations like Toys for Tots and Foundation Communities, working together with residents to raise thousands of dollars for families in need and donate hundreds of toys to children during the winter holidays.

In addition to taking part in these community-wide initiatives at our luxury apartments in South Austin, we highly recommend you check out these five worthy organizations if you’re looking to volunteer your time to a worthy cause this year.

Central Texas Food Bank

The Central Texas Food Bank’s mission is to provide hunger relief for 21 counties throughout Central Texas, including our very own Travis county. The food bank relies on volunteers to get this important work done, and there are lots of ways to volunteer, including packing meals in their warehouses and helping with data entry in their offices. This is the perfect opportunity for individuals or groups who are passionate about feeding the hungry and who want the freedom to volunteer as frequently or infrequently as they like.

Keep Austin Beautiful

We live in a beautiful community in South Austin, and organizations like Keep Austin Beautiful help make sure it stays that way! Volunteers for Keep Austin Beautiful give back to their communities by picking up trash, cleaning public spaces, and helping with set-up and tear-down of local events. Their website has a very detailed and easy-to-use calendar of events and projects for volunteers to help with, so you can easily sign up to help with specific events or communities that interest you most!

Austin Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity helps provide much-needed housing for folks in need all over the world, and Austin is no exception! Whether or not you’ve ever built a house (we assume most of you haven’t), Austin Habitat for Humanity can use your help! Volunteers assist with both construction and non-construction tasks, and registering to volunteer is easy. If you’re passionate about making sure people have a safe home to live in, this is an excellent opportunity for you.

Austin Pets Alive

If you’re an animal lover, Austin Pets Alive is amongst the best places to volunteer in Austin! This no-kill shelter always needs volunteers to help meet the needs of Austin’s dogs and cats who are waiting to be adopted. Even if you don’t want to work directly with animals, you can help animals in need through APA’s thrift stores or by helping with clerical work from the comfort of our luxury apartments in South Austin. While we’re talking about volunteer opportunities for animal lovers, we should note that Austin Humane Society is another great organization in need of volunteer help.

Austin Central Library

If you’re a bookworm, or you just love the smell of books, there are lots of ways you can volunteer with Austin Central Library. Whether it’s working with kids, sorting through book donations, shelving, or being a Social Media Ambassador, there’s something for you to help with. Similarly, Inside Books Project is also a deserving project in need of bookworm volunteers. This organization provides free books and educational materials to prisoners in Texas who need them, promoting reading, literacy, and education among incarcerated individuals.

What did you think of our list of volunteer opportunities near our South Austin apartments? Let us know if we missed any of your favorite charitable organizations in Austin! And if you want to shop our luxury apartments in South Austin and other RPM communities across the US, don’t forget to check out our Communities page.

With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, many residents of our luxury apartments in San Antonio are rushing to plan the perfect date night. Whether your idea of the perfect date is a fancy dinner, a planned activity, or just enjoying each other’s company, there are lots of ways to pull off a romantic Valentine’s Day date that shows your partner how much you care. In fact, you may not even need to leave home to plan your ideal date night, since our community amenities and apartment amenities offer a wide variety of ways to spend time together right here at the best luxury apartments in San Antonio.

Take a Romantic Stroll On The Riverwalk

Do you and your partner enjoy long walks together? Why not keep it simple with a romantic stroll along the Riverwalk? You can take in the sights of Downtown San Antonio while you hold hands and chat about your favorite moments together. Just make sure to bundle up and wear comfortable shoes! As romantic as it may be to let your partner wear your coat when they get cold, you’re both going to want a few layers between you and the February chill.

Cook Your Favorite Meal Together At Home

You don’t necessarily need to visit a fancy restaurant in order to enjoy a romantic dinner together with your partner. Why not try cooking one or two of your favorite dishes together from your designer kitchen at our luxury apartments? You can either work together to recreate a meal that is sentimental to your relationship or divide and conquer to each prepare a dish that the other person loves.

Share a Candle-Lit Dessert Course On The Balcony

If it’s not too cold (or you have a big fluffy blanket you can cuddle under), enjoying the view from your patio or balcony while you share dessert could be a great way to create a romantic atmosphere. For bonus points, light a few candles as the sun begins to set and enjoy a warm dessert like pie fresh from the oven or lava cakes with a molten center. Just remember to avoid any open flames by opting for electric candles, or skip the candles entirely and opt for twinkle lights instead.

Visit The San Antonio Botanical Gardens

Flowers are a go-to Valentine’s Day gift, but why not put a new spin on this classic by visiting the Botanical Gardens together? Although the weather is cold, the Botanical Gardens are always full of beautiful plants and easy walking paths. They even have a “Palentine’s Day Brunch” event on the 13th that could be the perfect way to kick off your V-Day celebrations; just be sure to register by Feb 11th!

Challenge Each Other at a Local Mini-Golf Course

Sometimes a little friendly competition makes for the perfect date night activity, and what’s more classic than a mini golf date night? There are plenty of mini golf courses to choose from near home: Monster Mini Golf, Cool Crest Mini Golf, and Embassy Mini Golf are all popular choices located near our luxury apartments in San Antonio.

If you prefer to stay home (or you’re just not a putt putt fan), try heading over to our resident game room for your friendly competition, or bust out one of your favorite games at home in your apartment.

That’s it for this year’s Valentine’s Day ideas! If you found this post useful or interesting, we encourage you to share it with your friends and colleagues! If you want to find your ideal home at one of our RPM communities across the US, check out our Communities page.

As Super Bowl LVI quickly approaches, residents of our luxury apartments across the US are likely to be hosting watch parties both virtually and in person. However you host your Super Bowl party this year, we have a few tips to help your party be the best it can be. Since RPM Living manages many multifamily developments across the country, we’ve gathered plenty of tips for throwing a great party in an apartment setting. Here are some of our best tips for hosting a successful watch party from your luxury apartment.

Know How You’ll Watch Ahead of Time

These days, many folks, especially apartment dwellers, tend not to have traditional cable service, which can make watching the Super Bowl difficult. Before the day of the game, make sure you know how you’ll be watching the game and whether you’ll need to change your tech setup to accommodate your watch party.

For example, if you’ll be streaming it from your phone or laptop but want to watch on your TV, make sure you have the cables or streaming devices you’ll need to accomplish that. Test it ahead of time too so you know exactly how it works on game day. This way you’ll avoid missing the beginning of the match because you had to troubleshoot.

If you’re planning a virtual super bowl party this year, knowing your tech setup ahead of time is doubly important because you’ll need to know how you’re watching the game and how you’ll run the video call with your fellow attendees, all without audio interference between the game and the video call.

Keep Snacks Simple

Snacks are a must for any classic Super Bowl watch party, but you don’t have to go all out on a complicated spread. Stick to finger foods that can easily be eaten without making a mess so that folks don’t have to choose between sitting on the couch and enjoying a snack.

Great go-to's are potato chips, popcorn, pretzels, and maybe a fresh fruit or veggie platter to balance things out. Jalapeño poppers, cookies, and sliders are also great options that require some preparation but are still easy to eat from the couch without too much mess.

Another way to keep things simple is to ask your guests to bring a food or drink of their choice to share. This way it doesn’t all fall to you to create the perfect spread and you’re sure to have at least one option that each person will enjoy.

Plan Activities For Folks Who May Get Bored

Unless all your party attendees are equally invested in watching every moment of the game, planning side activities could be a great way to accommodate the boredom of less invested watchers. After all, super bowl games are a significant time investment and chances are you’ll have at least one person in attendance who doesn’t know the difference between an option and a bootleg…or between a quarterback and a running back. You might even have young children in attendance who need something to do while the adults watch.

For those watching, you could create Super Bowl bingo cards that give even casual viewers something to focus on during the game. For those who want to disengage from the game temporarily, paper football or classic party games like beer pong could be the perfect distraction. For young children, consider having activities like coloring books or themed crafts like DIY foam fingers.

That’s it for this year’s Super Bowl party tips! We wish you the best of luck in your next housing search. If you want to shop RPM communities across the US, make sure to check out our Communities page!