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At some point in my high school life, I started to put the required effort to properly organise and plan projects and tasks. Since then, I’ve tried to use a variety of different apps and websites to more effectively set up reminders and apply organisation to my work life. Unfortunately, I haven’t found an app that has worked well for me. I’ve tried Todoist, Any.do, Wunderlist, as well as using Sphinx to create my own documentation. I’ve even reverted to pen and paper and employed a Bullet Journal for a time. Each option has its pros and cons, but I typically run into issues when I try to use a task to also keep ideas and notes tied into a task. The most success I’ve had here is using the Issues section of GitLab to keep my projects organised. Still - not an ideal situation for everyday life. Instead, I recently discovered Trello.
What is Trello?
Trello is an organisational tool that offers the user the ability to create boards, and each board can contain multiple lists. And each list contains items that can be fully fleshed out (with comments, due dates, markdown, labels, etc.)
Where Can I Use It?
Trello has Android and iOS apps, as well as a web app. Shortly after this article was written, Trello also unveiled desktop apps for macOS and Windows.
Boards? Lists? Seems confusing.
I actually find Trello’s approach to be very similar to GitLab’s Issues - you create a task, and can assign it to a corresponding list (such as must-do, could-do, and future features). You can also collaborate with others. They also offer plugins (“power-ups”) that can integrate into a calendar (for example). While the free users can use one plugin, pro users can use more than one.
What I’ve done is essentially create a board for each major set of tasks - such as personal, Full Circle Magazine (for keeping track of article ideas), and then work boards for each of my clients. This way, I can create a list per project, or project phase. I set up the tasks as basic entries first (literally just a title), but as I do the research or have ideas, I can leave comments or edit the description to link to items, or to outline my process going forward.
Doesn’t Sound Like A To Do List To Me
I would be inclined to agree. It’s definitely capable of being much more than a to do list, and better suits my needs. If I just need to set myself a quick reminder to take the pizza out of the oven, I’ll more likely create a reminder in Google Inbox. I’ve never actually found to do lists helpful for organising long-term goals or projects, and use them mainly for a “I need to get this done today” list. The Bullet Journal approach is the exception to this, but I just found it too easy to forget to update it, and the lack of reminders didn’t help.
What’s Wrong With It?
Not an awful lot. The only issue I’ve had is their approach to reminders. You can set due dates for tasks, but reminders are only sent out 24 hours in advance, and you must be subscribed to the board (and, in my experience, to the list or task as well). I would appreciate the ability to set more than one reminder (for example one 24 hours before, and one 2 hours before the deadline). Besides that, the android app doesn’t seem to update in the background (but that may be my phone).
I Use X, Should I Switch?
That’s entirely up to you. Are you happy using your system? If so, I see no need to change. If, however, you’re like me and haven’t been completely sold on anything you’ve used up until now, Trello may be for you. Also, if you refuse to use anything that doesn’t offer a Linux desktop app, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Does it…Cost Anything?
Trello has a free user level, which is pretty functional (unlimited boards, members, checklists, and attachments). It does limit said attachments to 10MB in size, and only allows one power-up per board, but I don’t find those limitations a problem for personal use. Teams and companies will be better off using one of their paid options ($9.99 per user per month when billed annually, or $21 per user per month). The full list of differences is here: https://trello.com/pricing
Conclusion
While Trello isn’t the end-all, be-all of organisational apps, it suits my style of thinking and organising better than anything I’ve found previously. That being said, for organising things on a per project basis (especially when it needs to be shared with clients), I’ll stick to private GitLab repositories. This is simply because all information would be in one place then. For everything else, I use Trello.