Hello, Trello...

By Stacie Mcdonald

Ack! It's a new year and I have a lot of things to do. 
Don't you? 

This 'things to do' issue generates one looooong to-do list. Which really becomes a to-do scroll, which is added to at such intervals as to continually forget re-prioritize items to the bottom. It looks a little like this.

27. Um...find a better system

But really folks, is anyone besides my grandma still using paper?  Paper list nonsense is soooo 2005. Come on, people! Get with the programs ... literally! 

There are many to choose from, but the one I am loving this month is Trello. It rocks. Oh, and it's my favorite price, f-f-free.

It works to divide your to-dos into cards, which are placed on project boards, which can be moved around, shared with other team members on your project, commented on and tracked from start to completion. Your collaborators can even vote on an item's priority status. Safely online for your easy access from anywhere. By anywhere, I mean your desktop at home, your desktop at work, your Android device, your iPhone and your iPad.
There's even a Windows 8 app.

Did I mention it's super user-friendly with a lot of helpful tips and instructions? It is, see? 

 

You can create as many boards as you need, managing your tasks into the different categories as you see fit. The great part is that you can see all of your projects at once, (or one at a time when you need focus) which eliminates the disappearing items lost at the end of the to-do list. 

You can also add photos, checklists and links to other places, giving yourself and others a clear view of where you're headed. Assign a task card to a member by dragging their name to the card. Set due dates and notifications to keep yourself and others up to date as things progress. When you have rocked the project to completion, archive it all so you can review later. Like during evaluation time, yo! 

One drawback is that while you can attach as many attachments as you like to a card, there is a 10mb upload limit, so you may have to link larger attachments (like a database) to a website or cloud account (like Dropbox) and attach the link. 

But overall, this is a great tool to keep projects, their members and the corresponding tasks in check this year. 

Give it a whirl. 

And for the love of Pete, throw that paper scroll away.