Anyone using Trello for organising their business and/or personal lives? I've had an account for years, but never really got into using it regularly. I'm trying to tame my massively out of control to-do list - or more importantly, prioritise all the things so I can concentrate on what's actually important to focus on now amongst the less important clutter! (Yes, I know there is some irony in talking about prioritising the important stuff rather than actually going and getting stuff done - but seriously, it is a very very long and complicated list!). I've struggled with the free-form nature of Trello and I think that's why its not really achieved any traction for me to date - I'm used to a much more structured approach and felt a bit lost with the freedom that Trello gives. I've found a few ideas I'm trying out now - I won't spend the time documenting it at this point (too much stuff to do!), but I thought it might be interesting to hear from other people who have successfully used it and how they manage their workflows in Trello.
@Simon Hampel you might like Smart Sheet better? Trello is based on agile project management so it can get confusing depends on how you prefer to work. I used to use them on the old team - which then evolve to each group using different tools and I ended up needing to have a tool to manage the tools! My preference is one board - Priority, In progress, Done and that's it. Unfortunately never that simple
You had me at trello I use evernote, hard part is sticking with it. I prefer pen and paper They look similar but trello seems more work colleague related. I found clear notebooks helped me rather than a ginormous ongoing list, but then also setting reminders and due days otherwise things get lost. Plus the check-list for everything to know where it's up to. To start with I think you need clear note books or organising structure on how you'll use it before you actually use it. Otherwise you can get into detail then not be what you wanted,or going back to the old ways. Is it for team work or just yourself?
I've been using it for a few months to manage a website/app build and it has been great. Had used Basecamp for a previous build, but found Trello easier (though Basecamp may have improved since I used it a few years ago). I initially setup Trello with various lists (e.g. In Progress / Completed / Review) with cards for each page/functions to manage communication. It ended up being much easier just ditching the lists and managing it using the cards only, then archiving as completed, with activity feed to see what was recently added/updated (and email notifications turned on). In my situation it was really on 1 on 1 communication, could see it getting a lot more difficult to use the way I did if there was a large group communicating through the board.
We use it, and it's OK for a small number of tasks. However I think I would find it not especially useful for a larger number of tasks, where perhaps priorities have to be used.
Never heard of it before - took a quick look ... seems far more targeted at serious project management tasks rather than managing a flexible (and somewhat chaotic) bunch of often-not-very-related tasks?
I started using Evernote a while back - again, didn't see what all the fuss was about and found I was spending more time managing tags and notebooks than I was doing productive work. But what I really liked was the full text searching capabilities - so now I use it to collect all my "miscellaneous" scanned paperwork (ie anything other than monthly statements), including letters I receive and on-off invoices I scan that I don't already track elsewhere (eg personal stuff). This is stuff I rarely need to access, but when I do I can generally just do a full-text search for it and find it easily enough, rather than having to remember how it was categorised! So I'm happy with the 5% of functionality I'm using in Evernote - it does what I need there - but it's not what I want to be using for organising tasks, it just feels to clumsy for that.
It's more flexible than microsoft project, less free compared to trello. All editable like excel. You can use it for unrelated tasks, just put them on different rows
I've used smartsheet in a previous gig at work. It's really just a cloud based, collaborative excel. It's not bad but not a dedicated 'task management tool'. I'm currently using Asana for my personal tasks. This then links into InstaGantt for my home renovation timelines. In theory, it allows my wife and I to add things that need to be done to each other's lists. Somewhat more diplomatic than asking in person sometimes, haha. It's the follow up on late tasks that's then a bit difficult. I don't like Asana's priority options though. Today, Tomorrow, Later - is much less useful that Low, Medium, High.
Sim, have you thought about going through the list and just deleting what isn't essential? If you're having trouble with that, I strongly recommend reading the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
@Simon Hampel what did you end up going with? I'm just getting involved with a community garden and going to look at the above programs to see if they're suitable for people to put ideas together, mostly pictures and sketches I'd think. @myf do you know about these type things? ?I'm thinking pintrest will be handy to get pictures and design ideas but sharing on the Facebook group could get messy. We're at the early planning and design stages. .. i went to one meeting and tried to lay low but apparently now I'm setting out the site! Lol should be fun and interesting working with different people everyone has their own ideas for it
@bob shovel Trello could work well if you have pictures and diagrams to share - you can put a picture on a tile to give people a visual reference. I'm still using Trello myself - but mostly as a simple ideas/todo list. I'm not very sophisticated in my usage of it yet - it's just a central point to quickly jot down things before I forget them.
@Simon Hampel thanks, it looks like a very handy tool. Just have to find out how technologically friendly everyone is i guess to use it
Still making great use of ASANA. Unfortunately their last update changed the colour scheme so it now looks like it was an inspired by looking at a kid vomit after eating too many lollies at a party, but that will be able to be changed shortly apparently.
Yeah, I recall evaluating Asana for project management stuff a few years back. Haven't looked at it lately, but I recall reading good things about it back then - it was very popular.
i just switched to using onenote for my day job. The attraction was because i already pay for office so it was free . Its been amazing so far things i like; - can make tasks from inside it that show up in my outlook and in turn phone - can flag stuff to my team - can make a brief sheet then use it to generate an email. - you can store your notebook in the cloud, so if my laptop goes missing on a trip i don't walk back the office looking sheepish. - did i mention its free with office and i am a tight arse. I really wanted a full blown management package but in the end i think i would have become a slave to running it where as something basic like one-note is just a replacement for my physical note books on steroids. In our personal company my wife is taking on more and more responsibility that i used to manage in my head so we will likely move over to 'one note' shortly so that things don't fall through the cracks.
One note, easy to use and easy to tick off the to do list. I also stopped adding 'fluff' tasks to the list . Only important tasks and I actually action it.
