Trello – Automatic Productivity

Having been a Trello user for the past year or so, I began using it with the assumption that it is only good for collaborative purposes for projects involving teams, that is until I experimented with Trello for personal use. Trello is great for personal use for almost all personal projects - this can include routines like exercise and housework but can extend to non-routine projects in school and with cooking. The possibilities for personal use with Trello is almost endless. For some who may not be familiar or want some inspiration on how Trello can be utilised for your personal uses, dare I say, you are in for a treat. How Exactly Is Trello Good For Personal Use For those who are unfamiliar with Trello or who don't have an account with Trello, you can go ahead and create a free account before reading on. Trello is quite intuitive to use and has a comprehensive help section that can help you quickly learn the ropes. Whatever personal projects or goals that you have this year, Trello can make it easier for you to achieve them. Here are 8 features/power-ups in Trello that makes it awesome for personal use. Trello boards, lists and cardsSetting of Due DatesCard Repeater Power-upCalendar Power-upHabit Tracker Power-upActivity Power-upDeadline by Elegantt Power-upHello Epics Power-up #1: Trello boards, lists and cards A visual of a Trello board, lists and cards Trello boards, lists and cards are the foundational pieces that make Trello so good for personal use. Gone are the days where you have to look for your notebook and write down your plans meticulously. Now, you can list down everything that you might have trouble remembering on Trello boards, lists and cards. Trello cards are contained within lists, and lists and contained within boards. You can think of Trello cards like poker cards, but customisable. Instead of playing a game of poker with these cards, you use these cards to stay on top of whatever you are trying to accomplish. For your exercise routines, each card can contain an exercise, with the number of repetitions and sets for each that you want to do. If you are intending to cook for your loved ones, each card can contain an ingredient/step. You get the idea - whatever you want to organise, you create a deck of cards and organise them in lists, within a board so that you know exactly what needs to be done and that makes it awesome for any personal use. #2: Setting of Due Date Setting a Due Date for your Trello Card is simple Within each Trello card is the ability to set a Due Date alert. This deadline is not just any normal alert. Many apps can set these kinds of alerts, but because things can be easily organised within Trello and Trello boards/lists/cards can be used for almost anything, it makes these alerts all the more powerful. Want to use it to reverse engineer your school project and set deadlines for each of your milestones? That can be done. Often forget to clean up your room and want to set up some reminders to get it done? That can also be done. #3: Card Repeater Power-up It just takes 1 click to add the Card Repeater power-up into any of your Trello boards Your hand no longer have to feel tired from writing down a routine checklist over and over again. Trello has a neat power-up called Card Repeater that allows for cards to be repeated automatically, and viola, your days can become more automated. Any routine that you do in your daily life can be partially automated with this Card Repeater power-up. Here are some things I can think of off hand that you could use the Card Repeater power-up with - exercise routines, wake up routine, before sleep routine, hydration routine. #4: Calendar Power-up You can even turn your Trello board into a calendar With Trello, you might not even need Google Calendars anymore. Trello has a Calendar power-up that allows you to substitute your current calendar app if you so choose to. Reduce going back and forth between different apps for your different needs and consolidate all your productivity needs within 1 app. Trello certainly makes this a possibility. #5: Habit Tracker Power-up It never crossed my mind that Trello can be used as a Habit Tracker app as well! You can track key habits that you want to build/break with the Habit Tracker power-up in Trello. Stop feeling troubled over some bad habits you may have. Regardless of the habit of hydrating or taking intentional breaks more regularly. Trello can become your partner in the building of good habits and the tearing down of bad habits. #6: Activity Power-up A timer! Gone can be the days where you felt as if you couldn't complete your tasks due to a lack of time. Reflect based on real data with the Activity power-up - see how much time you are really spending on tasks and come up with ways to correct them. #7: Deadline by Elegantt Power-up Look at all your deadlines at a glance with this power-up Feel in control of the goals you are trying to achieve With the Deadlines by Elegantt power-up, track clearly how on track you are to your various milestones in relation to your personal goals and adjust accordingly. This extra sense of accomplishment/urgency can mean the difference between giving up on your goal or completing it. #8: Hello Epics Power-up Very useful for larger personal projects The Card Relationships - Hello Epics power-up allows you to create multiple parent-child relationships between cards. This allows you to have a nice overview of your plans. This feature can be especially useful if your personal project is big and you want to break it down into more manageable parts. The Limitations Of Trello For Personal Use You have seen how good Trello can be for almost all purposes. You can organise it to act as a reminder app, calendar app and even a habit tracker app. But while Trello is undoubtedly great for personal use, it does have a few limitations. We are going to explore 3 of the main limitations of Trello as it relates to personal use: The free version of Trello only allows 1 power-up per boardTrello is a Jack of all tradesIt can take a while to get used to how Trello works #1: The free version of Trello only allows 1 power-up per board The paid version of Trello costs $12.50 per month if paid monthly and $9.99 per month if paid annually. If you are intending to put Trello to work for your personal use, this is a cost that you would likely not want to incur and that means having a limitation of only 1 power-up per board. That said, 1 power-up per board is usually good enough. While the downside for a free user is that you only have 1 power-up per board, the upside is that you can have unlimited boards even as a free user. You can create many boards each serving a specific purpose and not have to worry much about this limitation with power-ups. #2: Trello is a Jack of all trades Trello can be used as a calendar and even as a habit tracker for whatever job you give to it, and it does them reasonably well. Yet, there are specific apps dedicated as a calendar or habit tracker app out there that will outperform Trello. But even so, some will opt to continue using Trello as their calendar, journal, exercise (...) app because it works well for them and they are already familiar with how Trello works. #3: It can take a while to get used to how Trello works For the uninitiated, all these talks about boards, lists and cards can be confusing. At least for me, it's wasn't immediately clear how I can delete boards, lists and cards - I thought archiving them is the same as deleting them, but turns out that wasn't the case. The point is, you will probably need to look up the help section multiple times in the course of getting used to how Trello works. But for an app that can potentially serve so many purposes? It's probably worth it. Take advantage of Trello to turbocharge your personal goals. As you get started, you may want to have a look at what you can do with your completed tasks.