Pick a process. Stick to it. Don't swim upstream. There is no one "best" way to process your photos. So this is mine. This process was created out of lots of errors and lost pictures. The process below deals with what I do after the pictures are taken.
First and foremost, the number one priority is to NOT LOSE YOUR pictures. So I attach a USB cord to my DSLR and import through Lightroom. I then check the import and make sure I don't see any "exclamation marks" which would indicate a problem with the imported picture i also check the file sizes to make sure they don't say "zero" bytes which would obviously be problematic. I then make a copy of the pictures onto another computer on my network and then and only then do I format the card in camera to erase the pictures. Redundancy in backup will save you heartache later. I guarantee it. As a side note, few things are more aggravating than failing to clear your memory card before another shoot and then running out of memory on that card so that you can't take more pictures. So I try to make sure to have a clear memory card before shooting.
Second, I edit the pics in Lightroom. For those that I like, I star them. I delete photos I hate but I've learned to keep some photos that I think look like crap since it's amazing what some post processing can do. For some pictures, they're blurry or insanely over or under exposed. Those go in the trash.
For some of the starred pics, I edit them further using some of the Nik software plugins. (More on the details on my editing workflow will be in a separate blog post). Once that is done, I export the entire library that I just imported as a jpeg 100% quality 300 pixels per inch to another hard drive on my network (that hard drive is automatically backed up to the cloud (I use backblaze.com)). That hard drive is also monitored by my Google Photos app which automatically backs them up as well. For some of my favorite pictures, I move them to a Lightroom collection which is synced to Adobe Lightroom servers which sync down to my IOS devices (and as of today, it will svnc down to my Apple TV4).
The third and final step is another backup step where I copy the jpegs that I just exported onto a Network Attached Storage. Redundancy.
Since I'm not one to usually study something before getting into it, the above process had to be borne out of some pain. I've lost pictures before. When it happens, I believe it is due to something going wrong with the memory card or with Lightroom but who knows? This process seems redundant because it is. If something fails, hopefully there's something to save. I have the pics on three separate hard drives and backed up to two different online services. What are the chances that they all go south at the same time?
Once you have a process, a workflow, it'll be like floating downstream with the the extra bonus that it should be an effective and efficient way to make sure that you don't lose your pictures. So what are you waiting for? Go take some pics.