Welcome to Pract.us for Habit Building!
We’re glad you’re using our application to help you and your employees build the habits that make a difference to your business. The starter pack comes with pre-loaded templates and set-up tasks. This page will show you how to use it.
It takes just about 30 minutes or less to get going.
You’ll also learn how you can customize the content to your needs. And don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or need help.
What is Pract.us?
Pract.us is a powerful learning system that helps you and your team focus on your business mission and key objectives while your carry out daily tasks. At Pract.us, we believe that we can get better at our jobs every day, and our tool helps you focus your employees on improving their abilities as they work.
With Pract.us for Habit Building, you’ll be giving yourself and your employees the support they need to turn key business tasks into natural habits. This starter pack is especially good for new employees, new managers, or employees learning new procedures.
A quick note before you start
You’ll see that the tool refers to “cards” and “skills.”
- “Skills” are small tasks to complete. They can range from simple activities, like writing an email, to more intense learning, like operating equipment.
- “Cards” are collections of skills that go together. You might have a collection of skills to complete on your new hire’s first day. These are all collected onto one card.
Ok, so why do we call a simple task a “skill?” Isn’t that overkill?
Well, it’s a bit lofty to call something like “sending an email” a skill, but at Pract.us, we believe that we can learn and improve our work in everything we do. Accordingly, we like to approach even the most basic activities with the same learning mindset as we do with more advanced abilities. And so we call them “skills.”
Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.
Michael Jordan
Get started with your first card
This first few steps will introduce you to the Pract.us application while showing you how to set up your habit development plan. When you’ve finished the steps on this card, you’ll be ready to start working on your habit!
- If you haven’t logged in and set up your profile, learn how to do so here: Getting Started for New Learners
- Once you’ve logged in, go to the main menu in the upper left and select “Learn.”
- Click on the card Getting Started.
- Press “Start” to begin building your first habit.
- Look at the skill “Click here first.”
- This skill will take you to the page you’re reading now. The instructions tell you to read this page, which is what you’re doing!
- Complete this skill by clicking on your avatar and then clicking “Signoff.” Watch the video to learn how. (52 seconds)
- Now you’ve finished one skill and you’re making progress!
Continue completing the skills on the Getting Started card until you’ve checked them all off.
Here are some videos that can help if you get stuck:
- Setting up habit reminders and reports (37 seconds)
- Editing your habit skill. (45 seconds)
- Editing your habit card (60 seconds)
Ask someone else to hold you accountable
You can use Pract.us to incorporate an “accountability buddy” in your habit development. Instead of signing yourself off for each time you complete a skill, you can ask your buddy to sign you off.
Being accountable to another person can make a big difference in how quickly you adopt your new habit.
Here’s how to add an accountability buddy:
Watch the video. (41 seconds)- Invite the person to join your team and give him or her the “Mentor” role. See video:
- Add your accountability buddy to any skills you want him or her to sign you off on. See video:
- When you want to sign off a skill that you buddy is on, click his or her avatar, then click “Email” to request signoff from your buddy.
Here’s a hint. You don’t have to add an accountability buddy for every time you do the habit. You can add your buddy as mentor to just a few skills or just the last one you do each week. Or add your buddy to your Review skill so he or she can coach you in your progress and help solve challenges.
Creating cards for other habits.
You’ve got one habit going with your new card. But you can work on other habits as well. You can even combine two or more habits into one card, so you can work on them together.
This video shows you how to set up another habit card from scratch.Helping others on your team develop habits
You can help others on your team build habits as well.
- Simply set up another habit card and skills, as demonstrated above.
- Then assign new people to your team. See the video. (1 minute 36 seconds)
- Get progress reports on how they’re doing so you can help hold them accountable, also. See the video. (34 seconds)