What is Trello?

Trello is a simple project management tool a simple, fun collaborative project management tool and it can be your GTD task management tool. Trello is lets you “drag and drop” task units once a task is DONE you just move it to “DONE” lane -> extremely simple! More about that later. Trellos own definition:

“a web page where you make a bunch of lists.”

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Trello is a organizes your projects into boards and gives you an overview of

what’s being worked on,
who’s working on what, and
where something is in a process.

Kanban board

The concept behind Trello is based on a concept called kanban board. Kanban was developed by Taiichi Ohno, (for Toyota), to improve and maintain a high level of production. Work (or units of Work) are represented with “Post-It notes” or” index cards”, sorted into columns. As in the picture: ToDo, Doing and Done. Trello has taken this simple concept and made it online and digital.

Why manage tasks why Trello?

Why would you want to manage your tasks at all? If you want to get more things done, more efficiently – should you have a system for it? Great question! :)

Lets define productivity:

“the rate at which goods are produced or work is completed” Marriann Webster

or:the quality or state of being productive

What does “being Productive” mean?

doing or achieving a lot : working hard and getting good results
producing or able to produce something especially in large amounts
causing or resulting in something

We want to ACHIEVE A LOT and get Good results! If not – please stop reading and do something else.

When do we not want to be productive?

Is there any reason as to when you don’t want to be productive? There are times where you have to step back and think “long-term. For example: we do not want to lower health and well-being for being productive, i.e. we do not want to experience CHRONIC stress or fatigue. We all want more done in less time so that we can do the things we love the most.

“What I learned early on is that any plan is better than no plan at all. And it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel.”BRIAN TRACY

Systematic approach

Your success in life is determined to a large extent by your ability to think, plan, decide, and take action.

Approach every problem systematically by defining it clearly, developing possible solutions, making a decision and then implementing the solution as soon as possible.

Difference between Train and Plane

The difference between people who use strategic planning to organize and direct their lives and those who do not is like the difference between taking a train and taking a plane. Both will get you from point A to point B, but the plane (personal strategic planning) will get you there much faster and without frequent stops.

Regardless of SYSTEM you choose use it, then improve it.

As they say in Starship Troopers

Your it until your dead or I find someone better:

Which system should I choose?

It does not really matters as long as you just do a “sanity check” on the system and just start . Do NOT get caught in Analysis paralysis just Launch BETA and then iterate.

GTD

In this post we will use GTD or Getting Things Done as our system. GTD is a time-management method, described in a book of the same title by productivity consultant David Allen.GTD moves planned tasks and projects out of the mind by recording them externally and then breaking them into actionable work items. This allows one to focus attention on taking action on tasks, instead of on recalling them. Intrepid explains it elegantly in this graphic:

Practical application of Trello?

Back to Trello! With over 5 million users, Trello is “the best” and fastest growing site for organizing any projects or processes.

Trello is:

FREE
Multiplatform
Fast
Flexible

Design of Trello

Projects are represented by boards, which contain lists (corresponding to task lists). Lists contain cards (corresponding to tasks). Cards can be progressed from one list to the next (via drag-and-drop), mirroring the flow of a feature from idea to implementation. Users can be assigned to cards. Users and boards can be grouped into organizations.

Real Examples

Repetitive tasks

We have covered LIFT for reaching goals and creating new habits.

There are things that you might want to have in Trello but is not suitable for LIFT. For instance we have covered how to use email and you can use Trello as a fun way to remind yourself that you should only check email “X-amount” of times a day. Other examples might be other small tasks that you do daily like review goals, read 30 min and so on. You use Lift to get the social pressure and metrics for the most important tasks.

Bookreading

Great article with example on how to read alot of books and the author is using Trello to manage books

Job hunting:

CrossFit:

We have talked about CrossFit before and how you can use it to your advantage optimizing fitness. Here is a visual for you to help you reach your fitness goals with CrossFit and Trello:

Kitchen Redesign:

Trello for homework:

Trello as a company

Trello recently reached 5Million users and gave anyone who claimed it a month of premium services (called Trello Gold)

They are fun:

One of the best app update messages I’ve seen. Kudos @trello pic.twitter.com/mDSsTcUbTW

— Gav Richards (@gav) September 24, 2014

More Inspiration:

Read this article on how to use Trello for:

Groceries
RSS Feeds
Gathering Feedback

Resources:

7 Steps To Creating The Best Personal Task Management System With Trello

How a small team can use trello

Deadline

Use trello like a pro

Call to Action

Want to start using Trello? Use this link! (you will support the site)

Copy and share this link with your friends: https://trello.com/peterlarsson1/recommend

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About the author : Peter

Peter is Podcaster, CrossFit Coach, Security Professional and productivity expert. He is the founder of FLAWD.se and the author of Security Encyclopedia: SakerhetsBibeln.se. Peter blogs about health, technology and productivity. Peter is on a mission to help you to Focus, implement success disciplines and to Win in life!