I love a good recommendation. I love it when friends and family recommend awesome things to me. I love getting to recommend amazing things to my friends. It’s just such an easy way to spread the love and make everybody’s life a little better.
Got a favorite recipe? Tell me! Tried a new fantastic restaurant? Do share! Know a secret Microsoft Excel hack? Send it to me right now! Found an amazing new podcast? I’m already mad you didn’t tell me sooner. Gotta tool that’s helping you simplify and organize? Do not wait one more second before telling me about it!
And when I get a recommendation for something that’s an immediate game-changer? Now you are speaking my love language. All the heart eyes for the person who shared it with me. And then you know it’s only a matter of time before I’m gushing about my new-to-me, life-changing discovery on social media, and in person, with, well, everybody.
And guess what? That time has come. I’ve got a recommendation for you! My new favorite organization tool is TRELLO! I first heard about it where I hear about A LOT of the awesome new things in my life–The Sorta Awesome Show podcast. First from Laura Tremaine, then from Meg Tietz.
Laura described Trello as the Pinterest of organizational tools, and I think that’s pretty accurate. Trello describes itself by saying “A Trello board is a list of lists, filled with cards, used by you and your team. It’s a lot more than that, though. Trello has everything you need to organize projects of any size.”
In Trello you organize things by Boards (think a virtual bulletin board). Then each Board contains Lists (think pieces of paper pinned to the board). Each List contains Cards (think sticky notes stuck on the papers). You can drag and drop cards and lists around easily as needed. And each board can have it’s own background color or image (with hundreds of gorgeous photos to choose from!) which makes Trello especially visually pleasing.
Trello is FREE for the basic version, and so far I’m completely happy with it as is. It is fully functional and doesn’t feel like a “lite” version of an app at all. With the free version you get one “Power-Up” (bonus functions like syncing with your Google calendar or Drive, adding polls or surveys, or even GIFs) per board. If you upgrade the the Gold (paid) version you get to add multiple Power-Ups per board. (I haven’t tried that yet, but I can see how that could be useful!)
Trello can be used individually or collaboratively with a team. (A team could be your family!) You can use it on your computer or via the app on your phone, and the two sync together perfectly.
Here’s some of the ways I’m using Trello to keep myself organized.
1: Daily/Weekly To do List
The pretty photo backgrounds are part of what I love about Trello. But more importantly, Trello gives me an easy way to see what’s on my to do list for today, tomorrow, and the week. The colored-coded labels help me to easily see if this is an item for home, work, my kids, or an errand that needs to be run. Each item is what Trello calls a card and can easily be dragged and dropped between lists (or even boards) as needed. My favorite thing is dragging a to do list item to the “DONE!” list and then archiving that entire list at the end of the week.
2: Meal Planning
On my “Meals for This Week” board I have a list for every day of the week plus another list of favorite meals that are currently in heavy rotation at this house. (Can you tell from the meal list that it is very much winter right now? So many warm comfort foods on there.)
At the beginning of each week I change the top card on each list to reflect the correct date and then either drag and drop meal cards from my favorites list to each day, or add a new card if I’m branching out.
Change of plans? It’s super easy to just drag a meal to a new day, or back to the favorites list for use another time.
3: Organizing Ideas and Projects
Trello is a great place to keep (and organize!) all kinds of ideas, from work projects, home improvement dreams, to lists of future blog posts. Since each card can have a photo or file attachment, its own checklist, or additional notes, it’s easy to keep track of big ideas and tiny details.
Do you use Trello? I’d love to hear the ways you are using Trello, or a similar tool, to keep your life and your ideas organized! Share a screenshot or description in the comments below.
If you haven’t used it yet, give Trello a try and tell me what you think!
*P.S. If you use one of my links above to try Trello it will help me earn a free month of TRELLO Gold (their paid version) to try. Then you can get a link to share with your friends to earn the same. I am not earning any money by sharing this, and this post is not sponsored by TRELLO in any way. They, like the rest of the Internet, do not know that I exist.
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