Learning to love Trello

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“Trello is useless!” Said no one ever. If we only count the people who have given Trello a chance.

Trello is a web-based application to make lists that has a variety of work and personal uses. It works as a bulletin board system where you can include cards and tag with color labels to keep organized. It also allows collaborative work, and you can add people to boards to be able to work with them.

Hi, I’m Veronica and I’m a Trello freak. I use Trello every single day of my life and I’m not a planner person, I just find it incredibly useful and adaptable to my needs.

How did I get to this point? I started using Trello for personal things. I’ve tried multiple times to use a planner but I always forget it at home. However, I like that feeling of accomplishment you get when you cross things off a list. So I used to make a lot of lists. On random pieces of paper. That I would lose constantly.

The Trello app solved this problem right away. Suddenly there was a place in my phone to store all the ideas and lists that were taking laps in my head. Here are some of the things I use Trello for:

Planning trips

When I go to a place, I like to focus on three things for planning: places I want to visit, things I want to eat, and how to manage logistics. I solve it with lists in which I add cards, and some cards get a label that corresponds to a day.

I’m fully aware this might sound nuts to some of you, but these are just guidelines I like to use. Some of these things end up happening and some don’t, but the planning ahead help ease my travelling anxiety and gets me excited for the trip. Win-win situation!

CHRISTMAS

I already said I’m a Trello freak, but I’m an even bigger Christmas freak, and I have the Trello boards to prove it. One of the best ideas of my life has been creating a Trello board dedicated to presents. There, I have a list for every person in my life I buy presents for. When I’m hanging out with them and they mention a book, a movie, or just a thing they like, I open the board and add a card on their list, and if I have the time, an Amazon link too. This means I never have that moment of “I don’t know what to get this person!” because Trello is already keeping track of what they want. My friends call me a Christmas ninja.

I use some labels for this too, to see what I have to order or buy and what I already have.

Another Christmas board I have was born out of nostalgia. When I lived in the US I could only visit my family for a few days during Christmas, and all year I would think of things to do while I was there. When I thought of something like this it made me homesick, but writing it down knowing I was going to get to do it helped a lot!

(As you can see, this is a more laid-back kind of board so I didn’t add tags. Tags aren’t always necessary if they stress you out).

Wishlist

Who doesn’t have an Amazon wishlist? I wanted to have more than that because (contrary to popular belief) you can’t get everything on Amazon. I write the things I would like my future self to own, add links and pictures and update it regularly, mostly close to Christmas or my birthday. When my family or friends ask what I want, I can just share this board with them and they can choose from a myriad of things.

Class review

Probably the most useful if you’re reading this and you’re in Adalab. We have a lot of exercises to complete for every session, and most of the times we don’t have time to finish them in class where we can ask the teacher or classmates questions. I was having trouble with some of these exercises but then I would forget which ones so I could ask about them. The solution? A Trello board! I made a list for every session, and then added cards on the exercises I needed help with. The labels indicate the level of difficulty I had so I know which ones I should solve first.

These are just some ideas on how you can start using Trello for your everyday life, and then it will be much easier to use it for work projects. If you liked this article come talk to me on twitter. Thanks for reading and Trello on!