This is a guest post by Jory MacKay. MacKay is a productivity obsessed writer and editor of the RescueTime blog. He loves to use data and storytelling to help people take back control of their time.

A recent survey of 850+ knowledge workers from around the world found that 92% of people regularly work on evenings and weekends. That’s a terrifying statistic. And while it’s easy to lay the blame on ballooning priorities and overwhelmed teammates, those are only a small part of a bigger problem.

Poor time management strategies seem to be the underlying issue, and in this Process Street article, we will explain how you can remedy this.

Our days have become cluttered with busywork, non-stop communication, and unclear priorities. We rarely have more than half an hour to focus on any one task at a time and so we end up taking our most important work home with us to make progress.

But as study after study has shown, we need to be able to disconnect from the workday to stay happy, healthy, and productive.

So how can you help your team take back control of their time, make meaningful progress on important work, and still punch out at the end of the day? It comes down to a combination of using the right data and adopting effective time management strategies.

In this article, we will cover:

• Time management strategies and how to prioritize your time with Process Street
• Team time management: The perfect storm of busy work and bias that eats up your team’s time
• How to improve personal productivity and track where your time goes
• 5 time management techniques: Ways to give your team more time each day

Let’s jump straight to it!
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How do you feel about your life?

A deep question to kick-off this article, especially considering we hardly know each other. However, when it comes to self-care and designing a self-care plan, it is a question of great significance.

According to the 2018 Organization for Economic Cooperations and Development (OECD) report, 18% of U.S. citizens live in relative income poverty, despite a general trend of citizens working longer and longer hours. In addition, factors such as housing affordability, household wealth, and overcrowding rate are showing signs of consistent deterioration.

It doesn’t take an expert to infer that these trends aren’t improving the average life-quality. As such, the 2019 World Happiness Report ranked the U.S. 19th, a decline from previous surveys.

To jump to the point, over the past ~10 years, U.S. citizens have become less, and less happy.

A concerning trend that diminishes societal resilience to crises, as we witnessed with COVID-19.

Something needs to be done!

Swinging for change to steer those depressing trends around, the team here at Process Street have created quality, effective and actionable free self-care resources, ready for you to hop in and use right away.

Use our self-care checklists as part of your own personal self-care journey, or distribute these checklists throughout your team to create strong, employee-focused organizational support.

These resources are carefully crafted, drawing from novel and up-to-date research into human happiness, indicating the best habits and self-care behaviors you should adopt for a better quality of life. Check out our Daily Self-Care Checklist below for a taster.

Click here to access our Daily Self-Care Checklist!

Click on the links provided below to jump to the relevant template.

• Daily Self-Care Checklist
• Annual Self-Care Planner
• Morning Routine Checklist
• Evening Routine Checklist
• Tony Robbins: Morning Routine
• Achieving a Work-Life Balance
• Backpacking Checklist
• Camping Checklist
• Travel Checklist
• Big Personality Test (Structure Template)
• DISC Assessment (Structure Template)
• Budget Template
• Daily Budget Template
• Daily Routine Checklist
• Daily Schedule Template
• Fitness Planner
• Lisa A. Romano: Overcoming Negative Self-Talk
• Self-Evaluation Performance Review Template
• SMART Goal Setting Checklist
• Weekly Meal Planner
• Work Anxiety Resolution Checklist
• KonMari Checklist

To begin this article, we will explain what a self-care plan is and the perks that come from having one. We will explain how you can design a personal and printable self-care plan that will give you benefits such as improved productivity, enhanced self-esteem, better physical and emotional health, and all-in-all a better life quality.

There is nothing to lose, so what are you waiting for?

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to find out how you can be happier and improve your wellbeing.

• Self-care plan: What it is and why it is important
• 22 free self-care checklists
• Use Process Street to devise an effective, personal, and printable self-care plan

Let’s set a new trend, for a happier and healthier society.
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This is a guest post by Sharon Koifman, an expert in remote work with nearly two decades of experience running three companies 100% from his computer. Sharon has studied and researched not only how to operate remote businesses but how to create an amazing work culture where people love to come to work. These days Sharon runs DistantJob, a very unique recruitment agency geared specifically for finding remote developers who work from all over the world.

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) started spreading, many companies began advising their staff to work from home. With the virus now pandemic and many countries under some form of lockdown, there’s a large swathe of people who are working from home that have never done so before.

Are you one of those people?

If so, you may be wondering how you’re going to stay productive while working from home – especially if you have young children at home and are having to balance their care and education at the same time.

The good news is that it is doable. In fact, full-time remote workers have been doing this for years! You can learn from their wisdom (and mistakes) which I’ll share, so you can be as productive as possible.

Just make your way through the following sections in this guest post for Process Street:

• Common WFH struggles
• Working from home tips for staying productive
• Work from home like a pro with Process Street!

Let’s get started! 🏡

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The global economic cost of anxiety and depression is $1 trillion per year.

That is a substantial cost to an issue that is predominantly ignored.

1 in 5 adults in the U.S. will experience a mental health issue each year, with 1 in 6.8 people experiencing mental health problems in the workplace on a weekly timescale.

Work anxiety is one such mental health condition which evokes a sizable economic cost from lowered employee wellbeing and sick leave.

In this Process Street article we explain what work anxiety is – and in that sense, anxiety in general. We then provide information on how you can take action on anxiety from a personal level and at a company-wide level.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down and read all we have to say.

• Work anxiety: Mental Health Risk Assessment
• Work Anxiety: Anxious meaning
• Anxiety explained: Understanding anxiety and the biological causes
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as an individual
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as a company
• Work anxiety: Take action with Process Street

Capes at the ready, let’s conquer workplace anxiety!
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This is a guest post by Sarabeth Lewis, a freelance SaaS copywriter and UX writer based in Austin, Texas. Lewis regularly writes for AppSumo, a team of amazing folks who run insane lifetime deals on the best software tools in the world… while eating an impressive number of tacos.

Email. What a blessing (and a curse).

If you’re anything like me, you’ve let your inbox get away with far too many shenanigans. You want to take back control and organize your Gmail. But how?

At Process Street we understand that email is ubiquitous for working professionals. Despite its ubiquitous use, many complain email has a central flaw: a tendency to become your to-do list.

Am I wrong?

This usually occurs passively, inadvertently causing you to lose control of your own time.

When your day is commandeered by your inbox, it means that other people are controlling your calendar.

In this article, you will find out how to take back control and organize your Gmail. Click on the links below to jump to the relevant section, or scroll down to keep reading.

• Organize Gmail: Remove email distractions
• Organize Gmail: How to obtain inbox zero
• Organize Gmail with Kelly’s Gmail system, our 9 step process
• Organize Gmail: 2 more (optional) Gmail tips
• Organize your Gmail with Process Street
• Organize Gmail: Take it one step further with an automated email

Let’s get started.

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Modern technology is extraordinary.

After all, without the advancements that have been made over the last 50 years, you wouldn’t be reading this post!

This is exactly why, when asked what has brought the biggest improvements to our lives, four-in-ten Americans said “technology”.

But we’ve reached a critical juncture.

There’s so much technology now. I would dare to say there’s even too many apps, pieces of software, and gadgets we’re using.

From different teams in an organization all using varying project management software, to spreading important information that really should be hosted in one place across a multitude of platforms, using too much software in the workplace can make things incredibly confusing. Not to mention overwhelming.

In reality, we could all do with a digital declutter, using only the essential applications, and ensure we’re utilizing those applications (such as Process Street!) intelligently.

This, in a nutshell, is digital minimalism – and it’s what I’ll deep dive into during the following sections:

• What is digital minimalism?
• The authority on digital minimalism: Cal Newport
• The benefits of being a digital minimalist
• How to become a digital minimalist yourself
• Best practices for the digital declutter process
• Use Process Street – your all-in-one BPM solution

Ready to take back control of your work and life with digital minimalism, feel less like a robot, and even find a little zen along the way?

Let’s go.

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Decisions.

We make a lot of them.

From deciding what we want to wear in the morning to making a bold, life-altering decision like starting a small business, we have to make decisions day in, day out.

In fact, we humans make over 35,000 decisions that we’re remotely conscious of per day.

But not all of those decisions will be smart ones – leading to bad, negative, or even downright harmful consequences.

How can we learn to bypass those bad decisions and, instead, become intelligent decision makers?

DECIDE.

No, that’s not me shouting at you and telling you to decide – it’s me introducing you to a decision making framework and process called DECIDE.

DECIDE has personally helped me make better decisions day-to-day which is why, in this post, I’ll be describing why intelligent people make poor decisions, what DECIDE is and how it came about, and how you can apply DECIDE to both your life and business!

All you have to do is read through the below sections:

• What’s the reason for poor decision making skills?
• What is the DECIDE decision making process?
• DECIDE: 6-steps for making good decisions
• How to make decisions in life and business with DECIDE
• How Process Street can help you win in life and business!

Make the right choice and read on.

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Career aptitude tests are powerful tools for both employers and employees alike. They can be used to gain insight into personal tendencies and make informed responses to career and hiring decisions.

Tests like these can differ in:

• Purpose (i.e. for career placement, selection, counseling, or training)
• What they measure (i.e. what they are designed to measure, be it personality type, skills, work approaches, values, or vocational interests)
• What they predict (i.e. performance, quality of work, management potential, career success and satisfaction, your next job)
• Format (online, paper form, in-person)
• Standardization and rigor (how subjective or objective are the test results?)

Some tests are highly structured, with definitive quantifiable outcomes; others are more flexible, and designed to be personally interpreted.

This article will look at six different types of aptitude test, broadly defined, and run through the process of how you can build your own aptitude tests using Process Street.

We’ll cover:

• What is a career aptitude test?
• How to build an aptitude test with Process Street
• The Myers-Briggs / Jungian Types Personality Test
• Free aptitude test template: Big Five Personality Test
• Free aptitude test template: Holland Codes
• Free aptitude test template: Leadership Tools
• Free aptitude test template: DISC Assessment
• Free aptitude test template: IQ Test
• Superpowered checklists

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“To put it bluntly, goals are for losers… goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.” – Scott Adams, Scott Adams’ Secret of Success: Failure

Matching up systems vs goals might seem odd but the truth is that you should be using one and not the other.

Let’s be honest – we’ve all set goals that we’ve never met.

From broken New Year’s resolutions to a failed career as the next big rockstar, goals have a nasty habit of not being met.

Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert thinks much the same in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life.

He identifies that everything wrong with goals can be solved by instead applying a regular system to complete your tasks.

I scoffed at first but then realized that I’d done precisely that to lose 70 lbs in six months and learn the piano.

That’s why today I’ll cover:

• What are goals?
• What are systems?
• Systems vs goals
  • Systems replace motivation with routine
  • Goals are hard to follow up on
  • Systems are consistently rewarding
  • Goals carry a more negative mindset
  • Systems are more realistic and flexible
• Turning goals into systems
• How to build systems

Let’s get started!

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Think life coaching is mumbo-jumbo? A bit of social hocus-pocus?

It’s not. And it’s a rapidly growing market.

In the U.S., the personal development industry was worth just $707 million in 2011, but that quickly shot up to over $1.06 billion in 2016.

To boot, the International Coach Federation believes over 53,300 coaches are practicing their craft worldwide, with over 17,500 of those coaches operating in the U.S.

So if you’re wanting to break into the coaching industry and establish yourself as an authority figure, you’re going to need all the help you can get. And that means getting life coach certification.

Confused about what life coach certification is?

I’ve got you covered.

In this post I’ll define what a life coach is (useful for any non-life coach readers), give examples of prominent life coaches, clarify what life coach certification is and how to get it, then offer free Process Street-made templates to help you with life management. Just read the following sections below:

• What is a life coach?
• Inspirational life coaches
• What is an ICF life coaching certification?
• Which life coach certification road should you take?
• How Process Street can help you be a better life coach!

Now, take a deep breath.

We’re about to get started.

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