Life Hack: How I Use Trello To Organize My Entire Life

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I love Trello. I try to spread the word of this wonderful, versatile productivity tool to everyone I meet. If there were a Church of Trello, I would be in the priesthood.

“Have you heard about our savior and organizer, Trello?”

I was slow to adopt Trello. I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work for me. But once I met a fellow Trello enthusiast, everything changed.

While Trello was created as a digital KanBan system (to-do, doing, done), it’s incredibly versatile. You can attach links and pictures to individual cards, create checklists, assign roles to other people, and so much more.

Trello consists of three levels of organization: boards, lists, and cards. A board is basically a digital corkboard. You can create as many lists with different topics on each board as you want. Then, each list contains “cards” or individual items. This is where you can attach things. You can also create a colored labeling system for each board to further categorize.

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And it’s free! I’m yet to see the need to upgrade to the paid version.

I am going to share a couple of board templates with you, but first, let me tell you about all of the boards I have.

  • Content Calendar

  • Drarry Fanfic (no shame!)

  • Fiction (information for my novels)

  • Boards for individual books/series that I’m writing

  • Freelancing (style guides, pitch ideas, to-do lists, etc)

  • Marketing Information (resources, brand info, ideas)

  • Personal Goals

  • Preparedness

  • UU life (church stuff)

  • Weekly To-Do

  • Upcoming Vacation

  • Travel: Places We’ve Been

  • Holidays 2020

  • Quarantine (Ideas for projects, things to do)

  • Podcasting

  • Home Binder

  • Meal Planning and Recipes

I also have collaborative boards with my fellow NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaisons, my co-admin of my critique group, and the content calendar from a company I write for.

My Digital Home Binder is where my husband and I keep track of bill due dates, chores, important documents, medical information, and a bunch of other stuff. You can grab the template here.

There are lots of meal planning templates out there, but they are all organized by protein or course. Mine is organized by cuisine. Michael and I cook a LOT, and we try recipes from all over the world. I’ve even left a few of our favorite recipes on the board for you.

When I add recipes, I try to add the ingredients in a checklist and the instructions in the description. I also sometimes add screenshots of the recipe and instructions, as well as a link to the original post. I hate going to recipe sites with a ton of ads that block the recipe or scrolling past a 500 word personal essay just to get to the ingredient list.

Here’s the template for my meal planning board.

I’m always up for more Trello ideas, so let me know how you use it!

~Krystal

Krystal Craiker