This is a guest post by Rodney Laws. Rodney is an ecommerce expert with over a decade of experience in building online businesses. He’s worked with the biggest platforms in the world, making him the perfect person to offer advice on which platforms to build your website with. Check out his reviews on EcommercePlatforms.io and you’ll find practical tips that you can use to build the best online store for your business.

Even after full-time remote work became a viable option, most businesses were strongly wedded to the classic 9-to-5 office setup.

Many thought it would tank productivity, impede communication, and damage how their business was perceived, despite the 30% of people working remotely full-time proving that remote work, well, works.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to try alternative measures. Those reliant upon footfall either pivoted drastically or shut down entirely, and all other companies faced the same, urgent question: Can we transition to being 100% remote?

Remote teams who were once dubious about remote work are now enjoying the benefits of increased flexibility, enhanced productivity, and saving money while working from the comfort of their own home. In fact, 74% of CFOs will move at least 5% of their onsite workforce to work permanently offsite.

However, there can also be disadvantages to remote work if they’re not nipped in the bud, such as burnout.

That’s why, in this guest post for Process Street, I’ll tell you how to avoid burnout as a remote team. I’ll cover what burnout is, why it’s so destructive, and provide you with tips and templates for making sure your remote team doesn’t suffer down the line.

Read through the following sections to get up to speed:

• What is burnout, exactly?
• How to avoid burnout: 5 tips to stop remote employee burnout
• Use Process Street to lead remote teams to success!

Or, if you wanted to dive into a template that helps team members to appropriately manage their days without overworking, there’s the Remote Daily Work Schedule Template below.

Click here to get the Remote Daily Work Schedule Template!

It’s time to get started with the rest of the post. ⌚️

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It’s all too common to find yourself wading through your organization’s shared folders in search of the file you’ve been asked to review:

• PROJECT-PROPOSAL-NEW-v5.doc
• Project_proposal_2020_final+edits.doc
• THIS_is_the_final_proposal_(old-version).PDF

Why does this happen? Why can’t everyone just use proper file naming conventions? The reasons can be lack of proper internal policy or procedure for naming and organizing files, lack of any consideration for folder or information architecture, and just plain carelessness.

With a small amount of effort, you can establish proper file naming conventions and avoid this kind of document spaghetti. The more organized you can be with your internal information, the more efficient and effective you can be in your business goals.

Just imagine – seeing neat, intuitively named folders, knowing which folders contain the documents you’re looking for, and – take a seat – having confidence that the file you’re about to click on will be what you expect it to be.

In this Process Street article, we’ll cover:

 
Let’s go!
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This is a guest post from Julia Samoilenko, a marketing specialist who writes about digital marketing trends and strategies for the Chanty blog. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work. Feel free to connect with Julia on LinkedIn.

Many of us like the idea of working remotely (especially if we have never experienced it). Out of bed and —Voila!— you are ready for work. No commuting, no noisy colleagues. Top level of independence and flexibility.

But what is remote work really like in practice? One day here at Chanty we had to answer this question and discovered what new benefits and challenges teams face when transitioning to remote-only mode.

Spoiler: there were many productivity pitfalls on the road to beneficial collaboration. It turns out that being an efficient remote worker is quite challenging. And that it’s twice as tough to manage a high-performing virtual team.

If you want to adapt to remote working best practices and maximize the benefits, then you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to reveal the ugly truth and teach you everything we’ve learned about a successful transition to remote work. After reading our ‘confession’, you’ll understand the challenges and methods on how to overcome them.

In this Process Street article, we’ll be covering:

• How to successfully transition to remote work
• Our key takeaways for remote work transition
• Additional self-management and productivity resources

Let’s dive right in!
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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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I have a proposal for you.

I can build you a house, complete with walls, windows, doors, and a roof for $350,000.

Do we have a deal?

No. I didn’t think so!

To make a decision like this, you need cold hard facts. You need details, clarity, and proof! You need budgets, breakdowns, and solid guarantees.

That’s exactly how a project stakeholder feels when they receive your project proposal, and explains exactly why companies only win 15% of the proposals they submit.

Project stakeholders will, on average, receive around 50 proposals a week. To choose you out of this huge pile, they need clarity, details, specifics, lateral thinking, and a whole heap of persuasion.

You need to learn the art of how to write a project proposal, to stand any chance of winning their investment, and increasing your proposal success rate.

So, join me in this Process Street post where we will take the following lessons in how to write a project proposal:

• Lesson #1: What a project proposal is
• Lesson #2: What a project proposal reviewer is really looking for
• Lesson #3: The surefire way to succeed with your project proposal
• Lesson #4: The 4 types of project proposal & how to create them (with tips & templates)
• Lesson #5: A little more about Process Street and how it can help your project proposals

If you’re in a hurry, grab this Project Proposal Template Checklist, and catch up with the class later:

Click here to access the Project Proposal Template Checklist!

Now, butts on seats, no talking, and let the class begin!
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Finding the best checklist app isn’t easy. I’ve written about my pains with productivity before, and I’m not the only one who has trouble sorting themselves out — you probably don’t know which productivity solution is best for you, either.

Part of the problem is that there are so many different apps for slightly different purposes, it’s hard to know which to choose…

Which is why, for this post, I’ve gone in search of the best checklist app ever created, and found some pretty under-the-radar stuff as well as apps most people already know!

Read through these sections to get completely clued-up:

• Structured checklist apps vs todo list checklist apps
• Which checklist app should you choose?
• Take control with Process Street’s checklists!

Let’s get started.

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I’ve got bad news.

Statistics show that no matter how hard you try, your project is probably going to fail.

To be a little more specific, only 2.5% of companies complete their projects 100% successfully.

“Failure is an unavoidable part of any project process” – ProjectManager, 5 Notorious Failed Projects & What We Can Learn from Them

Yet the cost of project failures is staggering. Failed IT projects alone cost the United States around $150 billion in lost revenue and productivity. And it’s frightening! Failure scares us all.

But, the good news is, failure, and how it affects you and your project’s overall success and profitability is controllable. If you can catch, or even predict, failures early enough, you can execute damage control measures and prevent them from completely derailing your project and its profitability. You can even use them to improve your project.

How can you catch or predict failures early?

By using a project tracker.

A project tracker is a snapshot of your entire project. It gives you and the project team a clear picture of how the project is performing, where the weak spots are, and which areas need the most attention.

Let me explain this concept further by taking you through the following topics in this Process Street article:

• What is a project tracker and what does it do?
• Are project trackers really necessary?
• What happens if you don’t track projects properly (with a real-life example)
• The most effective way to track projects

Let’s get going!
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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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Click here to visually map and improve your business processes now!

Did you know that visual information is processed 60,000 x faster than text?

This explains why the average person remembers only 20% of what they read but 40% of what they see. This also explains why most companies use a form of visual management to communicate with their employees.

Let’s do a little test to see if people, in general, respond better to visual cues than text.

Look at these two depictions of a traffic light below.

One is a sentence describing a traffic light, and one is an image of a traffic light. Both traffic lights are on different colors:

1. The traffic light is on red.

2.

At the end of this Process Street post, we’ll see which color traffic light you remember! No cheating mind!

In the meantime, I’ll take you through the following topics to explain what visual management is and how you can use it to effectively communicate with your employees:

• What is visual management?
• Why use visual management?
• The 3 golden rules of visual management
• Implementing visual management with Process Street

Ready?
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I’ve just finished watching this Netflix docuseries and I can’t stop thinking about it.

The Last Dance.

It’s ten juicy episodes, full of massive egos, incredible basketball, and a banging 90’s hip-hop soundtrack. It’s a fantastically brutal account of how the Chicago Bulls came to dominate the basketball scene throughout the 1990s.

The team was led to countless victories by three key players: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman.

This, coincidentally, demonstrates the concept behind the Pareto chart, and this Process Street post perfectly.

I’ll explain what I mean by this later. First, let me go through what we’ll cover in this post:

• What is a Pareto chart?
• Where did the Pareto chart come from?
• How to read a Pareto chart
• When to use a Pareto chart
• How to create a Pareto chart with Process Street

I’m excited to get started. So, my cagers, let’s take it to the hole!

I admit. I may have googled “basketball terms” for that sentence… what I’m basically saying is; C’mon you lot! Let’s go!

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