How to Organize Your Life With Trello

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Want to get organized? Want an online workspace to collect all your thoughts and ideas? A place that can store and organize anything you want.

There is such a thing that can do this and it’s called…..Trello.

Trello is an online workspace that allows all of us (free of charge) to make lists, check items off once completed, give due dates, and color-coded labels to better find what we’re looking for.

It does more as well but that’s a broad explanation of what it can do.

Now, let’s dive into everything there is to know about Trello.

 

This post may have affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to make a purchase using my link.

 

TRELLO ORGANIZATION

 

 

 

After you get signed in (or signed up if you need to), you’ll start making up your boards. This picture above is a Trello board. A board is how you’ll collect anything you want – any thought, idea, or anything you want to log or track.

To start with a board, you’ll name it. I’ve named this board above, Books. You’ll then make lists. I’ve labeled the first list, suspense. Under this list are cards for all of the different books that fall under this category. As you can see, I have 3 cards so far for the 3 different books that I picked. Once you click on a card, you’ll see the back of the card. This is where you can add details about the book and anything that you don’t want to forget.

Now, let’s talk about what each thing is that’s on the back of the card and a few tips and tricks of things you can do with Trello.

 

DESCRIPTION

 

To start, I clicked on “The Girl on the Train” card for this example. The picture below shows the back of the card. The first box that you see is the description. Here, you can add anything you want to say about the book. You can add how many pages are in the book, how many chapters are in it, what page you stopped reading at in the book (unless it’s saved on your Kindle or tablet), and anything else you want to say about this book. You can also mention where you got this book (if you owned it or borrowed it). And you can mention where the book belongs to if it’s not yours. For the example below, I made a short list of important things I need to know about this book.

 

 

 

Now, here’s a trick with a list you can make in Trello. Looking at the picture of the description box above, you’ll see that I wrote “# Need to Know” at the top of the description box. Then, I started my list with a dash mark followed by the list item. If you notice on the picture below you’ll see how it wrote it after I finished (and hit save). It took my header and made it bold and put bullet points where the dash marks were for my list items. You can create a list just like this as long as you make the header with a hashtag before it and include a dash mark next to your list items. Then just hit save and you’ll have a list just like the one below. Another tip – you have to include a space after the dash marks to create the bullet point. Otherwise, it will just stay as a dash mark.

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ADD TO CARD

 

MEMBERS

 

Then as you look at the back of the card, you’ll see things on the right side of the card that says “add to card”. The first one is Members. You would select this if you wanted to add someone to this card that was also a member of Trello. So if you wanted to loop in your spouse or partner about an idea you’re gathering up information for, you can do that. If you are working on something with a team, everyone on that team can be a member of your Trello card. They’d all see things that you and other members wrote on the card and can also be able to add things to the card as well.

You can also add members to your board by selecting and changing the Private settings of the board (you can see this on the first image of the board).

 

 

LABELS

 

The next box under “add to card” is Labels. Here you can add a colored label to your cards. You’ll label these any way you want. So for this book board, I added labels that pertained to where I could find the book. For example, if you had books on your Kindle, on your tablet, physical books that you own, and borrowed books from the library and friends, they could all have their own labels. There are 10 color labels to choose from (you can see all of the colors in the picture further below – you’ll get all 10 colors from clicking on “create a new label”).

 

 

 

As I’ve shown above, I labeled mine as library books as green, books on a tablet are yellow, Kindle books are purple, books are blue, and borrowed books from friends are pink. If you look at the first picture when I showed the board with the 3 cards on it, you’ll see the colored labels on the 3 cards. For the card we’re looking at now, you’ll see a pink label on the front of the card as well. This allows you to see at a glance where you can find a certain book and who it belongs to.

Here’s a quick tip about labels – All the labels correspond with a number. So the first color you see in the labels is green (see the picture below for all of the colors). So green is #1. Yellow is #2, orange is #3, and so on. Pink is #9 (see picture below with the labels) instead of #7 (as you may think looking at the picture above with the labels). When you hover over the front of a card and select the corresponding number for the color you want, that color will show up on your card. This is much quicker than going into each card and selecting the label. Also the labels are standard on all of your boards so the numbers for the colors will be the same on all of them.

 

Signup for Trello now!

 

 

 

CHECKLIST

 

Next is the Checklist. When you select this option, it will allow you to put something into a checklist form. If you wanted to keep track of the chapters as you read them, you can make a list of every chapter in the book. Then as you read one, you’d check it off as done. You may look at the picture below for this example. As you see, Chapters 1 and 2 are checked off. You do have the option to hide completed items so they will disappear after you check them off. You can easily get them back by clicking the same button. Look at the picture below (under Due Date) to see how it looks when they’re hidden.

Here’s a tip for checklists: If you want to reuse a checklist that you’ve used before, you can do this easily. Once in another card, just select checklist and all of the other checklists you’ve used before on other cards can be selected.

 

 

 

DUE DATE

 

The next box is the due date. This is just as it says. When something has to be done by a certain date, just select this box and mark the date that it’s due. The date will turn yellow when the due date gets close and red when it’s due. This will allow you to have dates on all of your cards so you know when everything is due.

Here’s a tip for due dates: Once on the front of a board when you can see all of your cards, you’re able to sort a list by the due date. To do this, look at top of the list and select the 3 dots. Then, select Sort By and then Due Date. If you don’t see Due Date as an option, it’s because there aren’t any due dates selected on the cards in this list.

Look at the picture below Attachment to see the Due Date on the back of the card.

 

 

 

ATTACHMENT

 

The last box on the right under “add to card” is attachment. If you wanted to attach a file, you’ll do this here. Just select it and either add something from your computer or some other various source, or if you copied a link, you can add that where it says “attach a link”.

Here’s a Pinterest tip: If you wanted to use Trello to Pin your images to Pinterest, you can do that easily by attaching your Pinterest URL here (you can also drag the URL from Pinterest directly to a card and it will upload the image and the link – this makes for easy manual pinning to Pinterest!).

You can see how an attachment looks on the back of a card by looking at the picture below Move.

 

 

 

 

ACTIONS

 

MOVE

 

Now going down further, you’ll see where it says “Actions”. The first one is Move. For this one, if you had a card that you didn’t want on this board anymore but rather have it on a different board, you can select this option and have the entire card moved to another board. You’ll just need to know the board it’s going to, what list you want to add it to, and in what position you want it on the list. There’s no need in deleting a card and putting the same information on another board. Also, cards move around easily just by clicking them and dragging them around the board. So there’s no need to use this option just to move the card around on the same board.

 

 

 

COPY

 

The next option is copy. If you have a card that you want to duplicate, this is where you’ll do it. As you can see from the picture below, you can change the title and decide what you want to keep or not keep on the card. This makes it nice so if something is different between cards, you can still easily duplicate the card but not have everything the same. Once you copy a card, it can stay on the same board or move to another board.

 

 

 

WATCH

 

If you select Watch, anyone else that’s able to see and add things to this card will be notified when something changes about the card. You’ll of course need to have members on your Trello board or card for the watch option to be beneficial. When selected, it puts an eye on the front of the card so you can easily see what cards are being watched by everyone. I did notice when you add a comment to the comment section, Watch is automatically selected (as you can see below under Comments and Activities by the checkmark next to “Watch”).

ARCHIVE AND SHARE

 

Archive is to delete the card from the board and you’d select Share if you wanted to print the card or email it. There are other options to share the card but I’m unfamiliar with them.

 

 

COMMENTS AND ACTIVITY

 

There’s also a comment section near the bottom of the card. So if you had other members on your Trello board or card, the comment section is where someone could ask questions, give feedback or just say something. It gives their name and time after their comments so you’d know who it’s from and when it posted. Comments are posted in the activity feed. In here, you’ll see all the comments and all the activity on the card. When anyone adds anything to the card or changes anything, you’ll see it in the activity feed. You can also hide the activity feed (which I have it hid in the picture below) but the comments will still show.

 

 

 

 

POWER UPS

 

Lastly, with the free version, you can have up to one Power Up per board. Power Ups are extra things you can have on a board. I have the calendar Power Up on my quarterly goals board and the google drive Power Up on my brainstorming board. You can play around with the different Power Ups to see if you want one on a board. You don’t need to have one but one is available if you want. If you want to have more than one Power Up, you’ll need to upgrade your plan. I believe, at the time of this writing, it’s about $5/month. I do know that some Power Ups offer a starter service and once you’ve reached a maximum with them, I believe you’ll need to change plans to continue using the Power Up.

 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

 

I hope this tutorial helps you with Trello. It’s an awesome online organizational tool and I don’t know what I did before it. Well, let’s just say I am a lot more organized online than I ever was before. Trello works amazing if you’re using it just for yourself or with another person or team. So whether you have a project to work on or you just want to clear something out of your mind, Trello is for you.

Setting up an account with Trello is super easy too. Start today and reap the benefits. And remember, everything is free unless you want more capabilities and then it cost money. I have been on the free version for over a year and have no plans yet to upgrade.

I hope you enjoy Trello as much as I have. It’s changed my life and I hope it does the same for you!

 

What is your favorite thing about Trello? Do you use any other online organizational tools? Please leave a comment and let us know!

 

 

DON’T FORGET TO SHARE OR PIN THIS FOR LATER!