How to use Trello?
Trello is a well-known management tool that can help you a lot. With practical features and a simple layout, Trello is one of the easiest pieces of software that you can use to organize your own tasks or those of other teams.
As defined by the application itself: Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. At a glance, Trello tells you what is being worked on, who is working on what, and where something is in the process. The idea is to organize everything together.
Some of Trello's benefits include:
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Access via the website or app
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Practicality of dragging items around
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Visual organization
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Free use for almost all functionalities
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Possibility of linking and synchronizing other applications
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Extra: there's Taco, the mascot, who always gives you tips on how to optimize your life
For personal use, Trello basically serves as a virtual agenda where you can add all your obligations and goals to keep good track of their progress. As it's very customizable, you can choose how to separate your tasks, including date limits, labels, photos, links and even checklists. I highly recommend it if you want to make your master list and set your daily tasks in it! You could, for example, create a list for each month and add a card for each week with a checklist of three tasks per day. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the explanation here!)
For use in teams, which is why Trello was originally created, it serves to divide, monitor and keep track of the activities carried out, providing greater alignment and collaboration on everyone's part. With the possibility of tagging profiles, they are notified of deadlines set and changes made to the cards they are part of, which greatly facilitates communication and organization.
Trello was developed based on the kanban methodology created by Taiichi Ohno. This agile method is based on a visual board with tasks organized on colored cards or post-its divided into three lists:
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Activities to do ("To do" list)
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Activities in progress ("Doing" list)
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Done activities (Done list)
The kanban first appeared in 1940 in a Toyota factory in Japan. Its aim was to manage production stocks to avoid delays and, above all, waste. Today it has been generalized to almost all processes, serving to visualize work, limit work in progress and maximize efficiency. It's a process for constantly improving the flow and quality of services.
Sounds cool, but how do you use it in practice? Trello has the same division as traditional kanban, on the home page you can create teams, a team can have one or more boards, within them you can create lists and within a list you can add cards. Ideally, you should have one board per team or theme, where you can add the people who can collaborate. Within the board you don't have to limit yourself to the three kanban lists, you can add as many or as few as you like. There aren't many configurations for a list, it just involves:
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create card
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copy list
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move list, to move a list you can simply hold the mouse or your finger on the touch and drag it
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follow, which allows you to be notified of any changes to items in the list
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sort
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archive, Trello doesn't delete lists, it just puts them out of sight
There are many settings for cards! A card has a name, description, space for comments and a record of all the activities carried out on the card. The only item that is mandatory is the name (the activity log is automatic, so it will always be there too). Each extra item you add will leave an icon in the card's thumbnail view, the description is symbolized by several dashes imitating text and the comments are symbolized by a speech bubble with the number of comments present. You can also add:
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Members, this will show the profile photos added to the card thumbnail;
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Labels, this will display only the color of the label or the name and color on the thumbnail, depending on the configuration you put in. You can create many labels, but there are only 10 color options for them, and you should differentiate by names if you want more than that;
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Checklist, this will put on view a little box with a check and the number of items on the list that have been done (e.g. 0/10, 2/6), which will turn green when they have all been completed. You can make more than one checklist on the same card, giving names to each one. You can also hide the items that have already been done, making the view clearer. When creating a new checklist, you can also choose to import an existing one, making the process easier. Another thing that helps is that you can copy lists from a document or spreadsheet that are separated by an enter, and when you paste them into trello, each line becomes a different item;
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Delivery date, this will reveal a little clock with the selected date, which also changes color, yellow if the date is near, red if the deadline has passed and green if it has been reported as completed. As well as setting a day and time, you can set a reminder for that card, to be notified by notification at the selected time;
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If the attachment is another Trello card, it will appear separately in the count, next to the Trello icon. Basically any type of attachment is accepted, from documents to links, and you can even customize their name. When you add an image as an attachment it automatically becomes the card's cover, but it can be removed from the cover;
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Cover, can be a color or an image and can occupy the top of the card or the entire card as a background. If it is chosen as the background, the thumbnail icons of the card's components are removed.
You can still:
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move the cards to other lists, again the pick and drag function also works;
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copy the cards, even choosing the new name and destination;
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create a card template, which you fill in with some basic information to make it easier to create many similar cards;
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follow, which notifies you of any changes to your card and leaves an eye icon on your thumbnail;
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archive;
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share, where, in fact, as well as being able to access the card's link to share it, you can also delete the card and get the card's email address, from which you can send information and, thus, a comment is automatically created inside the card. Pretty cool, right?
It doesn't stop there, in the description you can insert characters and other symbols to format it almost as you please, so you can add titles, bold, italics, strikethroughs, headings, lists of topics and subtopics, numbered lists, separator lines, quotes, writing in boxes, images, links and even code format, which appears in orange font. That's it as far as Trello's organizational division goes, explore and customize as you see fit!
There are also some last general settings within a board, where you can:
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change its visibility, between team, private and public;
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invite members and change their permissions, as well as follow their activity within the board
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see your notifications (in a little bell at the top right next to your profile picture)
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within the menu (which has a button below your profile picture):
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add board description.
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change the board background
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search for cards on the board;
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add stickers to cards;
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edit settings;
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create and edit labels;
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view archived items;
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setting up emails to the board;
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follow the board;
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copy the board;
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printing and exporting the board;
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closing the board, which would be the equivalent of archiving.
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insert automations with butler. When Trello is really used to streamline processes, the butler becomes a very important tool, as it's a kind of scheduling of actions in Trello. A simple example is: whenever you put a label on "in progress", it automatically moves to the "to do" list. There are also complex examples, such as: when creating a new project list, automatically adding pre-specified cards with standard dates and tasks, notifying members and so on.
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adding powers, which would be the equivalent of Google forms add-ons (I talked about them here). Powers allow you to add more functionality, from different views, such as a calendar, to inserting new properties, such as graphs, formulas, a freehand notebook, etc. It's also with powers that you can synchronize with other applications. Unfortunately, in the free version you can only have one power per board. I recommend the calendar, which allows you to easily view deadlines and helps you organize your tasks better.
Final shortcut tips:
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Trello already allows you to set up more than one account, which makes it easy to switch between accounts without having to log in again. This functionality is found by clicking on your profile picture!
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You can get an overview of all your cards, i.e. the ones you've been added to, and you can even filter them. Simply click on your profile picture and then on "cards".
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Clicking "q" on your keyboard makes all the cards you haven't added disappear into the board, making it easier to identify how many and which tasks you need to do.
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Trello offers a huge number of templates from different areas, so you can start using them and taking inspiration from them.
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You can favorite boards so that they always appear at the top of your home page.
It may seem like a lot, but it's actually quite easy to get started and, with practice, learn how to use Trello better. I've made a summary PDF with illustrations for you to download and consult whenever you need to.