Use ‘Trello’ to Get Organised

Let’s face it, time and organisation and two things that everyone seems to need more of, but they are also two of the hardest things to obtain. Now while I would love to give you “a whole big jar full of time”, sadly trying to put a clock (so that it still works) in a jar, just doesn’t work well, so we’ll all have to keep working on that one. But on to organisation, and that is something I may be able to help you with.

Well, actually not me personally, but rather a program called “Trello”.I first heard of Trello through Lisa Alzo’s article “Say Hello to Trello” in the Apr/May 2013 issue of Internet Genealogy Magazine, and since then one of my colleagues has us using it at work as a group to-do list. So I’m learning it bit by bit, and finding it quite useful.

Now back to Lisa … while I’ve know of Lisa through social media for several years, I finally got to meet her when I went to RootsTech in March 2013. Trust me, it’s a thrill when you finally meet your social media buddies in person. And it was nice to be able to put a face to the author of the article. Lisa is a writer, instructor and lecturer so has a busy life, and in the article she tells her readers how she’s using Trello to keep track of her deadlines, to-lists as well as keeping track of her own personal genealogy. Now Trello isn’t a genealogy tool as such, but rather an organisational one, but it can be used to help you keep it all organised (genealogy to-do lists included).

Trello is free, and you can create an account at https://trello.com/. You can use it on your computer by logging in, or use the app on your mobile device. So you always have your to-do list with you.

It’s uses what it calls boards, lists and cards. Think of a board as a topic, with lists (as To Do, Doing and Done), and cards which are items that you write and file on to your lists.

Like I said we’ve started using this for work, and have a number of different topics, with each of us adding in to-do tasks that we think of for each topic. And as items are being done, or are completed we can then move the ‘card’ to the Doing, or Done column (or as they call it ‘list’).

You can have your own personal boards, and you can create ones that you share with groups (like we are for work) which allows all of those people to contribute.

I’ve created personal boards for each of my blogs, with the To-Do list listing all of my blog ideas (yes, the list is long), the Doing list is for the ones that I’ve half done, and the Done list are obviously my done ones.

Now before I finish up, I wanted to share this quote with you:

“Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is at”

And lastly, rather than me rave on about Trello, as I believe seeing something visually is far easier, I’ll direct you to a Trello Basics video.

If you are reading this and are a user, a past user, or a “I think I’ll give it a go” user of Trello, please let me know how you find it. I am a newbie to the program, and am interested in feedback.