5 Ways to Boost Your Project Planning with Trello

I’ve used Trello for years and it makes project planning significantly easier for me.

Now, before I go any further, I want to dispel any concerns that Trello is just for business projects. It’s not. I’ve used Trello for everything from writing, planning, and managing stage productions to pitching articles to clients and even planning my book. Trello can help speed up just about any type of project you have.

Let me show you how to do this.

1. It’s all about Kanban

If you’re not familiar with Kanban boards, let me introduce you. A Kanban board is a visual representation of your project divided into columns.

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For example, you might have a project board called Chores with columns having headers To do, Do, And Finished. Then you can add a tag named Plate arrive Do columns. When you start working on that task, drag and drop Plate card from Do ARRIVE Doing. When the job is done, drag Plate card from Doing ARRIVE Finished.

A Kanban board makes it easy to see where each task (card) is in the process. Of course, you can create as many columns as you need. For example, in My Production Workspace for Me and My Muse series, i have columns for Location, Cast, Episode Idea, Pilot, Episode 2, Episode 3et cetera.

In this case, I don’t actually drag and drop cards between tasks, but instead add cards to each column to keep track of what’s needed. In all my project management efforts, a Kanban board is the way to go. The key here is to make sure you create your board in a way that gives you an overview of your project and the status of all your tasks.

2. Sharing is caring

Another thing that can really help you is to share your board with people who will be involved in the project.

Once you add users, you can assign cards to people who need to participate in specific parts of the game, which is useful when you have multiple members added to the board, but not everyone needs access to every card.

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Once members accept the invitation to the board, you can add them individually on a card-by-card basis. Then, once they’re added, they’ll be able to see that card, meaning Trello will automatically send them notifications if anything changes.

3. Important details

You might want to add a tag to a column that has nothing but a title. That’s fine if the task is simple. But if the task needs instructions or any other kind of detail, you’ll want to add it.

Each card has a description, cover photo, attachments, dates, checklists, labels, and more. The more information you add to your card, the better prepared those assigned to the task will be to succeed.

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I’ve had instances where I’ve thrown a card into a column with nothing but a title. Days (or weeks) later, when I go to do that task, I can’t remember what to do (or how to do it). To that end, I always add as much detail as possible to a card. Those details will matter.

4. It’s All About ‘Power-Ups’

Trello includes the ability to extend the feature set of its basic board with the help of Power-Ups. These extensions cover a wide range of functionality, so you’ll find one for almost any need you have, such as Slack integration, analytics, automation, file management, product & design, and more.

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Even better, Power-Ups are available to both free and paid accounts. Be aware that some Power-Ups have a cost associated with them, but many are free. To access Power-Ups, click the Rocket icon on the Trello toolbar, search for the Power-Up you want, and click “Add.”

5. Use templates

Trello also includes a wide variety of templates you can use. You’ll find templates for meeting agendas, company overviews, teacher weekly plans, video production, holiday bookings, travel inspiration, guided gratitude practices, book planning, home buying, and more.

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Templates make it easy to create quick boards without spending a lot of time planning and designing. Like Power-Up, templates are free to use.

It won’t take you long to get used to Trello, and once you do, you’ll find your projects run much more smoothly, with less chaos and confusion.