Why I Love Trello - Overview, Uses & Features

Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll tell you why I love Trello and what kinds of boards you can create with it.

Trello is one of my new favorite tools that I use for planning, organization, and productivity.  It is beautiful, works across platforms, has amazing collaborative features, is satisfyingly tactile, AND is so versatile that it is almost difficult to get started since there are so many ways you can use it.  

So, what is Trello?  It is a kanban app.  You may have heard this term in reference to the Just In Time inventory system that Toyota developed in the 1980s.  Basically, the Japanese characters for kanban mean “Card” like index card and “Board” like white board,   Kanban is the visual and tactile system that Toyota used to shepherd parts through its factories — the arrival of the card would let workers know when a part had moved to the next stage and when new parts were needed.

In a non-industrial environment, people started using kanban systems to track and manage any process with multiple steps.  Here’s an example of a kanban board that uses sticky notes as cards.  In this situation, each sticky note represents a small project — probably a software bug fix or feature release.  All potential projects are housed in the To Do column.  Then they pass through each step of the process — plan, develop, test, deploy, and done.  You can see how this can be used for any process where there are multiple items going though the same routine set of steps — writing articles, sales acquisition, choosing a college, etc.  

Trello is an app that uses kanban principles.  You create a board and can have as many boards as you want — even in the free version.  Within the board, you create lists — those are the columns.  Within the lists you can add cards.   What is nice about Trello is that the cards aren’t just two dimensional sticky notes that can only hold a small bit of info.  Instead, you can pack each card full of information like attachments, due dates, check lists, images, links, and notes.   This makes Trello really versatile and you can use it in a host of different ways.  As far as I can tell, people generally use Trello in three different ways:

• Actions - so this is the original usage where your cards are projects or tasks and you move them between lists as they progress through the stages of the process.  By far the most common set up is to have the cards be tasks and the lists be To Do, Doing, and Done.  The next way people use Trello is by creating
• Lists or Categories - Each list on a board contains a certain type of thing.  People use Trello to hold their grocery lists, names of movies they want to see, all of the tasks in a bigger project, places you want to see on vacation, etc.  And finally, people use Trello to just hold
• Notes - Trello cards can contain so much information that you can easily use them as a repository for notes.  You can put attachments, check lists, images, links, and comments in a card and store it for future reference.

Because there are all of these ways to use Trello, you can imagine that the number of ways you can set up a board is virtually limitless.  In my next video, I'll describe the different ways that I use Trello, but here are some more generic examples:

• Video Production - this is an action board.  Each card is a video topic and gets moved from step to step through the process until the video is scripted, filmed, edited, uploaded, launched, and marketed.
• Home Renovation - this is a project board that is a hybrid of a couple of different uses.  There is an action component with tasks as cards moving between To Do, Doing, and Done.  But there is also a notes function where you can keep plans, contractor contact info, great websites for purchases, a link to your budget spreadsheet, etc.
• Media to Consume - this a list of TV shows, podcasts, books, and movies that you want to eventually watch, read, or listen to.  The lists are categories and each card represents an item to consume.  You can include more information within the cards to show who recommended the item, where to watch it, and how long it might be.
• Meal Planning - this is a list board with each card containing a recipe.  The cards can contain images, links, and ingredient lists.  Individual recipes can be organized by type and then pulled together to create a weekly meal plan.
• School - this is another hybrid board with To Do, Doing, and Done lists for specific homework or reading assignments, but also a list containing notes for each class and other pertinent information for school.  In addition, you might also have a list for a big project or term paper to split those ongoing tasks out from every day work.

Now that I've shown you a several of the ways to use Trello, let me tell you about some of it's great features:

• Free - it's totally free for unlimited boards, lists, and cards.  You would only need to upgrade to the paid version if you want to upload big attachments OR (and this is tempting) you want to have more than one Power Up per board.  More on that later.
• Cross platform - it's available through a web interface as well as on your mobile app, so you always have access to your boards.
• Beautiful - it's a stunning app both on the web and mobile with beautiful photos to use as the background to your boards, so it really makes you want to use it.  I love this since I tend to find apps to be either beautiful or full-featured, but rarely both.
• Tactile - We all know how satisfying checking items off of a list can be -- even electronically, but there is something really satisfying about being able to move an item from one list to another and reorganize a list by dragging cards around.
• Collaborative - You can share your boards with anyone who also has a Trello account.  Then they can add cards, move cards around, and get notifications when you make changes to cards or boards that they have also joined.  It's a great way to collaborate with co-workers, fellow students, and family members on joint projects.
• Checklists - We've already talked about boards, lists, and cards being the basic Trello organizational structure.  If you use checklists in Trello cards, you can make that one level deeper.  Here's an example, you can create a list for a project and have a card for each task that is needed to complete the project OR the card itself can be a whole project with 10 steps to complete that are represented by the checklist within.  On the web, you can convert a check list item to a card with one click. In addition to checklists, you can use
• Labels - You can choose to apply a label to a card.  There are 10 colored labels that you can use -- and you can choose a custom name for the label that will only apply to that board.  These labels can be applied to any card in any list making it a virtual organizational tool.  For task or project boards, people may use labels like Urgent, or Awaiting Response, or Due Tomorrow.  You can see these colored labels in the standard board view. And finally
• Power Ups - Trello gives you the ability to connect with a bunch of different apps like Calendar, Google Drive, or Slack.  Adding the calendar Power Up allows you to see you cards with due dates in a calendar view.   A free membership allows you one Power Up per board, but with the paid subscription, you can add as many as you want.

So, you can see what an amazingly versatile tool Trello is for organizing life, productivity, and project management.  There are so many different ways that you can use it, it can be a little hard to determine how to incorporate it best into your life.  Join me in my next video when I share how Trello works with all of my other organizational tools and how I use it.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!