In 1836, Edward Bulwer-Lytton came up with the adage “the pen is mightier than the sword“.

Bulwer-Lytton was referring to good writing and effective communication being the most powerful tool of all. So powerful that it could win wars.

In business’ modern-day war against tough deadlines, seemingly never-ending workloads, and stiff business competition, Bulwer-Lytton’s adage still rings true.

Particularly when it comes to penning checklists.

Here at Process Street, we’d go far as to say that checklists are something of a secret weapon hidden in plain sight. They maximize productivity, minimize stress and anxiety, and can keep perilous human error at bay.

But the rewards can only be reaped if checklists are well-written.

Not sure how to write checklists properly? Confused whether you’re penning checklists the right way or not?

I’ve got you covered in the following sections where you’ll learn what checklists are used for, why they’re so useful, on top of being given tips and tricks for writing checklists from 15 thriving companies:

• What are checklists?
• Why are checklists so useful?
• Tips & tricks for writing checklists from 15 thriving businesses
• Writing checklists: The key takeaways
• Use Process Street for writing checklists efficiently and effectively!

Now, it’s time to march onwards!

Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

Marie Kondo has managed the impossible. She’s rallied a large chunk of the population into getting excited about tidying up.

That’s right. Tidying up.

And there are clear benefits to decluttering – from being able to donate to thrift stores more to having improved mental health, to having better financial management and even boosted rates of productivity.

But how did Marie Kondo revolutionize the act of tidying?

With a simple process called the “KonMari Method”.

In this post, you’ll find out who Marie Kondo is, the science behind the lauded KonMari Method, why the method is beneficial for everybody, and you’ll even get your hands on a (free) KonMari Method checklist!

Read through the following sections to get the complete rundown on Marie Kondo:

• Who is Marie Kondo?
• What the KonMari Method is and how it helps with tidying
• Rules of the KonMari Method checklist
• Benefits of following the KonMari Method
• Use the KonMari checklist yourself to spark joy!

Now, let’s spark some joy.

Continue Reading

The following is a guest post by Eric Lawton. Eric has been part of the Human Resources sector for most of his career. During this period, he has learnt how to create and tweak hiring strategies to choose specific industries and companies. These days, he prefers to share his experience and knowledge with other people in the business.

The main goal of any workplace is to be as efficient as possible. The more efficient employees are, the more productive they become. This, in the end, leads to greater profits.

Therefore, it stands to reason that you should eliminate any obstacles hindering this process. If you feel that this is easier said than done, though, you are not alone. Most employers have a tough time identifying what the real productivity killers are.

Fortunately, there is quite a lot of research conducted on this topic. As a result, this article contains the relevant statistics and details you need to be aware of. This will make it a lot easier for you to make some real changes in your own workplace.

So, without further ado, here are the efficiency destroyers that you must watch out for:

Continue Reading

The following is a guest post by Jay Lieu who runs Great Big Minds. In his blog, he shares life-changing inspirational content with the world. He lives to empower, inspire and motivate others to live life great and go after their passion. You can connect and learn more about him here.

We live in a hyper-connected digital world that glorifies multitasking – it’s the only way to get everything done when there are so many things to tick off our seemingly endless to-do-list. Keeping ourselves busy means we are being productive, right?

In many cases, the answer is a big, fat no.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but keeping a to-do-list and focusing your sole effort in knocking as many items off that list can actually hold yourself back from achieving your bigger, more meaningful goals.

How so?

Let’s dig a little bit deeper, and provide you with some to-do list tips that will get you on the right track.

Continue Reading

You click the ‘Contact Us’ page. Nothing happens. First, confusion, then familiar frustration. It was a mailto link. Your computer slows to a grinding halt as a huge, archaic desktop mail app rises from the depths of your hard drive. Checking that the date on your computer isn’t 15 years out, you wonder why mail integration isn’t standard… and what year is it exactly?

Continue Reading

I read an interesting post the other day by Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy about how he has been training his son to have a “growth­ mindset”.

Here is a quote from the post:

Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the more it grows. They’ve found that neural connections form and deepen most when we make mistakes doing difficult tasks rather than repeatedly having success with easy ones.

What this means is that our intelligence is not fixed, and the best way that we can grow our intelligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail.

However, not everyone realizes this. Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford University has been studying people’s mindsets towards learning for decades. She has found that most people adhere to one of two mindsets: fixed or growth. Fixed mindsets mistakenly believe that people are either smart or not, that intelligence is fixed by genes. People with growth mindsets correctly believe that capability and intelligence can be grown through effort, struggle and failure. Dweck found that those with a fixed mindset tended to focus their effort on tasks where they had a high likelihood of success and avoided tasks where they may have had to struggle, which limited their learning. People with a growth mindset, however, embraced challenges, and understood that tenacity and effort could change their learning outcomes. As you can imagine, this correlated with the latter group more actively pushing themselves and growing intellectually.

In short someone with a growth mindset will embrace challenges and be willing to fail multiple times before reaching their goal, whereas someone with a fixed mindset will not even try.

Continue Reading

Love or hate Microsoft, if your company uses Outlook, you need it to check in with your team, communicate with customers, and coordinate events.

While it’s great to have your email and calendar automatically synced, you can’t rely on Outlook to automatically solve all your productivity woes. Instead, think of it as a platform you can customize and optimize to help simplify your workflow.

These add-ins let you set reminders, track whatever you send, and move important info to the right place sooner. They can even reduce the number of pointless emails you get.

Here are 16 Outlook add-ins, compiled by us here at Process Street, that will transform your inbox into an efficient machine.

Continue Reading

We’ve all been there. A letter icon on your phone has a five-digit number in the top corner and your apprehension at tackling it grows stronger every day.

You’re drowning in emails.

“In 1993 I didn’t need a system for doing email… and yet, today, I feel like the only way you’re going to succeed at a job… is figuring out how to deal with a high volume of email.” – Merlin Mann, Inbox Zero Google Tech Talk

Lucky for you, there’s a handy method called inbox zero which you can use to blast through your messages and stay on top of your backlog.

Say goodbye to email hell; your easy (and free) solution has arrived.

Continue Reading

Process mapping is a useful tool for what can be summed up as “seeing the big picture and little pictures at the same time”.

That may sound silly to you, but that’s really what it is.

The primary benefit achieved from mapping out your business processes is that you can accurately evaluate each of the steps needed to complete a certain workflow, while understanding exactly how each of them interacts with one another and contributes to the process as a whole.

This ability to evaluate all aspects of a process helps managers identify constraints, opportunities for improvement, and formulate strategies to implement changes without disrupting day-to-day work.

But how do you go about ensuring that the time and effort you put into constructing these maps translates into improved performance?

That’s the question we’ll be tackling in this post.

Before doing so, however, we must acknowledge that there is a huge range of complexity when it comes to methods for process mapping. If you are a small organization it can be as simple as drawing it out on a whiteboard, whereas enterprises use sophisticated mapping software tools like Appian and Lucidchart.

This point regarding complexity and different kinds of process maps leads us to another important sub-topic that needs to be addressed early on – the difference between process mapping and process modeling.

Continue Reading