Activity and Process Management: Tips and 8 tools for businesses!

Organizing your day, taking care of personal obligations, knowing exactly what needs to be done at work. If you've decided to manage your career independently, you know how difficult it can be to manage tasks. Who hasn't been overwhelmed by seemingly endless work? Planning and managing tasks are part of the job scope for anyone running a small business. Trying to do everything at once is one of the biggest traps of procrastination. When you find yourself immersed in a pile of work, it's very likely that the feeling of putting everything off will appear.

Maintaining focus is one of the most challenging attitudes. Productivity is entirely linked to how we handle the number of tasks and the time available. Completing projects in small stages will make everything flow more smoothly, with that good feeling of accomplishment.

In this article, as well as in the IT Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses , we've selected some tools so you'll never again struggle when organizing your work.

Best tools for process and activity management

Trello

Trello is a great work companion. With it, you create boards that indicate the stage your project is in. For example: "To do, in production, finished, etc." Trello is very intuitive. However, there is a learning curve to using the tool that needs to be respected. If you're not a very patient person, you'll certainly give up on Trello. But we guarantee: it's worth trying and persisting until you adapt. It's very dynamic and makes it easy to drag and drop task boards quickly. You can add members and assign tasks to them.

Creating workflows with Trello is enjoyable and easy, dispelling the idea that the work planning phase is a heavy and tedious activity. The tool allows you to use colored labels to define priorities. The most important tasks can be in red, for example, so they can be located quickly.

Trello is an excellent task management tool widely used by startups and small and medium-sized businesses.

Quire

One of the coolest things about QuireThe feature is that it displays the details of your activities in a sidebar – simply click on the task row and read all about it on the right side of the tool. You can mark items as completed and remove them from the list. It's also possible to insert attachments, including from Google Drive, add calendars, upload completed work if you're working in a team, use tags to define activities, and much more.

The interface is quite simple, and for those who prefer working with tools that look more modern and dynamic, Quire might not be the best choice. One of Quire's greatest qualities is its versatility . It basically has two distinct areas, separated by columns. Managing tasks is very easy with just two or three clicks.

Asana

Asana is an excellent tool for managing group tasks. It has a chat, a calendar with an overview of members and their roles, a to-do list (which can also be organized using boards), and a discussion forum. Perfect for project managers . Asana is great for visualizing what each team member is currently doing and, therefore, distributing the next steps.

Collaborative chat is a major differentiator, as it facilitates direct and fast communication, eliminating the need to waste time sending emails.

Managing tasks with this tool becomes a very interesting activity due to its ability to group different teams and provide access to charts showing the progress of each team's work . The tool can also be integrated with email. Its Premium version allows for easy and dynamic task management for large teams. For small businesses with lean teams, the free option fulfills its purpose well.

Artia

With No ar tia , you centralize your projects in one place. With customized reports and dashboards , you have quick access to the necessary information and insights into the performance of each project. Furthermore, you can view, in real time, everything that needs to be done and, through time tracking , understand the exact time each activity requires. 

For teams, Artia facilitates communication through the "comments" option, which keeps everyone informed and ensures greater collaboration on activities. In addition to all this, the  major differentiator is the support offered , with accessible resources in Portuguese.

Although it is a paid tool, Artia offers a free trial option, making it an ideal choice for both small and large businesses.  

Basecamp

THE Basecamp it is a paid project management toolIt is useful for companies and freelancers, who can use it to organize workflows, generate reports, and track activities.

Since there is no free version (it is possible to test it for 30 days), Basecamp is a very complete tool. It is divided into activities, projects, chats, calendars, among other features that cover various phases of the project, from planning to analysis.

Monday.com

This is a tool collaborative, which, according to the developer, It might even be fun to useThe monday.com It is based on what is called a "pulse," which can represent various things: a task, a client, a project, among other options.

The first step in using the tool is choosing a template that suits the company's needs. From there, it's possible to customize various items. The platform is intuitive: through columns, in addition to the options already mentioned, you can mark locations, add text, numbers, links, and more.

In addition, monday.com can be paired with other tools, such as Dropbox box Microsoft Excel, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Trello—we'll talk more about the latter later.

The tool is paid, and usage costs range from R$ 83 to R$ 15,591 per month — billed annually — with plans ranging from basic to enterprise, for 5 to 200 users . For more than 200 users, it is necessary to contact the company to request a personalized quote.

Runrun.it

Despite the name, the Runrun.it It is a Brazilian software that It serves to manage projects and track workflowThrough it, it is possible to obtain reports regarding deadlines, project costs, and the performance of each professional involved.

With an intuitive and organized interface, and support for Portuguese and English, the platform presents its commands through informative panels and efficient instruction guides.

With tags, deadline calendars, a search bar, and message boards, Runrun.it also allows you to create several different types of reports to retrieve data on every detail of your projects.

Furthermore, the user who manages the main account can establish hierarchical levels within their team, customizing access to platform resources and roles in task creation.

Pipefy

The company Pipefy Pipefy helps companies become more organized and productive by intuitively managing recurring processes and tasks that were previously handled through spreadsheets, forms, and email requests. Pipefy operates on two fronts: it standardizes how the team works and displays the productivity of each area of ​​the company and team members.

Within the platform, the manager specifies which activities the team needs to manage and adds a checklist of what needs to be done at each stage, and who should be responsible whenever the activity is requested. Thus, every time someone creates a new task, the tool automatically assigns it to the right person and informs them what needs to be done at each stage.

Ease of use is one of the tool's highlights, as it does not require any IT infrastructure for installation.

Currently, the services offered are free for up to five users from the same company. From the fifth user onwards, the company will charge a monthly fee of 30 reais per registered person.

To conclude

Managing tasks is synonymous with increased productivity and improved team performance. This is due to the management of activities and processes within companies, helping people achieve their goals and objectives within the company's strategic planning.

Therefore, if your company's tasks and processes are not managed in some way, seriously consider implementing a solution like those mentioned above, or another that you find interesting for your business.

This and many other tools can be found in our IT Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses . You can download the eBook and send it to your colleagues.

Until next time!