Are you the Ringmaster, Lion Tamer and Juggler?

You have 18 things going on all at the same time that you’re trying to keep up with and get it all done and your TO-DO list just keeps growing. You’ve heard all the time management hooyee and don’t need yet another calendar, planner, list manager….

LIONS & TIGERS OH MY!

I get it. But hear me out. Your To-Do list is, well, exactly that, a list. What’s more, many of the items on your list are, probably, unrelated. So what if we change our thinking a little and think about our tasks in terms of projects rather than just a bunch of bullet items. Think about this for a minute. You may have a list of items to pick up for little Johnny’s science project and Susie’s dance recital. Your to-do’s might be; pick-up crayons, get poster board at stationary store, buy olives(for the Spanish Pot Roast), marinate roast , pick up Susie’s costume from dry cleaner.

Right? But really isn’t this three  very separate ‘projects’: 1. Johnny’s science project, 2. Susie’s dance recital, and 3. meal planning?

Simple Solution

Let me introduce you to TRELLO. The way it works is by; Boards, Lists and Cards which we’ll talk about as we go along with a couple of examples. And the beauty of it all – it’s free and you can use it on multiple platforms. It’s designed for ‘project’ thinking people who want to get things done. So, what is Trello? The simplest explanation I can give you is that its a place to organize your life all in one place. With this ‘tool’ you can easily answer questions like: When is Johnny’s science project due and at what stage is it in now, have I gotten everything he needs for it? or When is Susie’s dance recital and have the invites been ordered, have they been sent, is her costume ready or What the heck am I going to cook for dinner tonight?

What’s for Dinner?

For the first example we’ll tackle a common problem – what the heck will I make for dinner tonight? Within Trello you can make a Board and call it Meal Planning. Think of a Board as a sheet of paper with a title of <whatever you decide>. In this case Meal Planning.  Now you’ll add Lists to your Board. Think of Lists as columns on your Meal Planning sheet of paper. You can have one column, two columns or as many as you want. You can start with one and when you think of something for another column just add it. It’s that easy! For our example we’ll make five List to kinda sorta organize our meals into categories: Vegan Dishes, Meat Dishes, Seafood Dishes,Sides and Salads and my favorite one Desserts. Next comes the really fun part (besides actually eating the prepared dish). As you come across recipes you add a Card to the relevant list. Say you come across a killer recipe using tilapia while browsing the web. You create a Card in the list Seafood and paste the recipe into that Card. If you’re super organized you can even put a due date on this card and when you view your board in Calendar mode (which we’ll talk about in a bit) you’ll know that on 02/16 you’ll be making Tilapia-a-la-JoAnne for dinner and the recipe is right there! You can even add two more Lists(columns) to your Meal Planning board. One for:  Big Hit and another for Don’t Make  that Again. If the recipe was a Hit then copy the card and move the copy to Big Hit list. If it won’t be made again just move the card to Don’t Make that Again List or just delete it completely. Me, I’d add it to Don’t Make that Again List because I may come across this recipe again and forgot it wasn’t a keeper. This way, I’ll have a visual to remind me. Just saying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do I do Now?

For our second example we’ll use the board I use to keep track of the posts and blogs I’ll be publishing throughout the year. My Content Management board.

The beauty of Trello is that it’s more than just a repository for information. It can be a dynamic, and ever changing tool. The beauty of this ‘tool’ is that we can drag and drop Cards all around. Up and down in their list, move to another list and even move them to another board. In the example below, you can see the posts I have planned for January in the Jan. Planned list and once they were published, I dragged the card to the Jan. Published list. That way, I know what I have planned and what I’ve published and won’t repeat it (unless its killer info that everyone should hear more than once. :)). Note: if you look at the dates in the planned lists (Jan. & Feb.) you’ll see lots of gaps. That’s because, as of this writing, that content has not yet been written. But the beauty of Trello is that once I have the post written, I’ll create a Card and just insert it into its proper slot. Voila! So when you order Susie’s invites for her recital you can move the Order Invites card from the Need to Order list to the Ordered list. That way you’ll know at a glance what has been done, needs follow up or needs to be done.

Remember I mentioned the calendar view of a board above. Here’s an example of this board’s calendar view by just clicking the link in the upper right. This way I see all the holes I have left to fill.

And I’ll share one more example with  you. This board is my workhorse that I open in my browser first thing in the morning and this tab stays open all day. It’s my Win the Week board which I use to structure my week.

Why did I just come into the Kitchen?

I can remember the lyrics to a song from 1993 but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. So whenever I get a flash of inspiration, I open Trello on my phone and add the idea to my Brain Dump list. That way, it’s captured and when I get back to the studio, I can decide if and when I want to work on it. What you don’t see here are the cards opened. I get a lot of calls and emails. They’re all listed in the Calls & Email card at the top of my Monday list because that’s when I usually like to return them . But, that’s not always possible. The beauty of using Trello is that if I don’t get all my calls & emails done on Monday, I just click on this card and drag it to Tuesday, or Wednesday or whatever day I have open to complete this task. Its like erasing the bullet item Return Calls in column 1 and rewriting it in column X. BUT a whole lot easier!

I love Trello because it’s so flexible and versatile and can be used in so many ways to make our lives easier. And I’m all for easier – what about you?

You can learn more about Trello at : https://trello.com/.  And for lots more ideas on how to help you get organized with Trello you can visit: https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-trello/

Hopefully this will help you wrangle all those loose ends that seem to never get done.

[DISCLAIMER: Created Portraits has no affiliation with TRELLO in any way, shape or form]. I just love it and think you will too!

Let me Know.

If you found this helpful then please let us know in the comments below and drop me a note to let me know how you use it to make your life so much easier. And don’t forget to share it with your friends. They like easier too!