How to Use Trello for Organizing Tasks and Improving Productivity

Trello enables businesses and individuals to manage and track their projects effortlessly from a single place and using a variety of useful benefits. Due to this, Trello is considered to be an efficient and effective project management tool.

As businesses grow, their needs increase, and so do their tasks, operations, and risks. To do this, they need a proper system to manage and track projects, tasks, progress, and minimize risks and inefficiencies.

A project or task management tool like Trello can help you with that👍.

Whether you are a small business owner, freelancer, team leader, or a large enterprise, you can use any project and task management tool from the market.

Although you can find many tools in the market offering the same benefit, choose the one that is easy to use and has a useful set of features for your use case.

So, if you are looking for a user-friendly platform for your projects, Trello is just a sign-up away. It offers an interactive and visually-appealing👀 way to manage projects and tasks while boosting team collaboration and productivity.

Let’s discuss what Trello is and its efficiency in helping manage projects so you can decide whether it can suit your requirements or not.

What is Trello?

Trello is an easy-to-use cloud-based project collaboration tool for managing anything, from a wedding party to a business strategy. You can organize your projects and tasks using the Trello board. Some of its common uses are goal planning, cross-team collaboration, brainstorming, editorial calendar management, recruiting, and product roadmaps.

Trello helps you visualize all kinds of data, including what the project is, who is working on which tasks, what is the progress of individual members, and more. Freelancers can also use Trello for their personal uses, like organizing their tasks, managing deadlines, and setting reminders.

Trello is simple, powerful, and also flexible, which means a whole productivity powerhouse. It offers options like lists, cards, and boards to get a clear shot of who is doing what and what they need to get the work done on time.

Furthermore, Trello is a visual tool that adds an extra benefit for your team to manage projects, workflow, and task tracking. You can add files, checklists and automate many tasks. Cards in the Trello keep all the information you need to be organized. This allows you to add dates, assign members, leave comments, and more.

Trello is a savior for many businesses and individuals who want to make their project lifecycle easy, accessible, and straightforward. Here, you can add boards and lists to your projects and keep track of everything from a single place. Additionally, you can access Trello from any part of the world to stay connected even if you are away.

Also, read👓 Trello Vs. Asana: The ultimate showdown for project management dominance.

Features of Trello

Trello is a simple yet efficient tool, rich with features, including:

#1. Views

Give your work a new look and see projects from every side with timeline, table, board, calendar, map, workspace, and dashboard views. This will bring a new perspective to your task at hand.

This feature includes:

Trello board: Trello board helps you choose a path from idea to action. You can plan your projects and break them into tasks to get things done faster. In addition, you can see the status of each task.
Timeline: Stay on track with your goal with Trello Timeline to see how each moving part comes together over time. You can drag and drop tasks and make adjustments to the dates depending on the needs and priorities.
Calendar: Trello Calendar is a crystal ball that gives a clear vision of work, including scheduling editorial calendars, to-dos, etc.
Dashboard: Get actionable insights into your projects and processes with the Trello dashboard. This helps you manage workloads and visualize key metrics, such as due dates, cards per list, assigned cards, and more.
Table: With Table, you can track all the work happening on the board. It will help you visualize your work in a spreadsheet-style list which can be sorted according to the cards you want to see.
Map: Trello’s Map view allows you to view location-based data on a map, no matter where you are. Whether planning an event, organizing work, tracking real estate, etc., it makes everything effortless.

#2. Automation

Focus on your important work and let Trello do the rest with no-code automation – Butler. It is built into Trello Board so that managing projects and tasks becomes easier. You can create rules, commands, and buttons to automate any action and task.

A landing page with the words 'automate your workflow with Trello butler'.

In addition, you can set rules for your important tasks by setting triggers and actions needed using Butler. It will enable you to move to the next step faster with the use of custom board and card buttons. You can also view card buttons on the back of each card and board buttons in the top right corner.

Furthermore, you can extend the power of Butler by integrating it with different platforms, such as Slack, email, and Jira. Butler recognizes repetitive tasks on your Trello board and suggests automation that can be enabled in just one click.

#3. Templates

Trello comes with a wide range of templates for design, education, business, engineering, marketing, project management, and more. With these templates, you can start directly using a blueprint and customize it as per your need. This will enable you to complete tasks faster and collaborate easily.

#4. Integration

You can integrate your business applications with Trello to make your workspace even easier and more accessible. Some integrations it supports are: Taco Browser Extension, Blue Cat, Pipedrive, Lokalise, Hootsuite, and involve.me, Instabug, Clockify, and more.

Also, read: Trello vs. ClickUp: Choosing the best project management software

Benefits of Trello

A man and a woman are looking at a Trello board.

Trello offers numerous benefits. They are as follows:

Organizing projects: Trello lets you and your team organize projects and tasks into lists, cards, and boards.
Collaboration: With Trello, you can easily collaborate with your team members in order to work together on different projects, allowing them to send attachments, leave due dates, and leave comments on cards.
Mobile access: Trello offers a mobile application that helps you access your boards on the go and makes it easy for you to stay productive even if you are away.
Flexibility: You can use Trello for any type of task or project. This makes it a versatile platform for individuals and businesses alike.
Time management: With Trello, you can set due dates for tasks and view progress on ongoing projects over time. This lets you stay on track to meet deadlines.
Customizable: You can add custom fields, labels, custom backgrounds, and more on your cards and boards with Trello. You will get full control over how to organize and visualize your projects.
User-friendly: Trello is designed to be easy and simple for users so that anyone can use it.
Kanban systems: Trello follows a Kanban system that allows you to schedule the task into smaller elements using a system of cards and boards.
Instant notifications: You will get seamless notifications and alerts when any card or board is updated. In addition, if someone in the team updates the tasks, you will receive immediate notification.
Less complex pricing: Trello has a less complicated pricing structure as compared to other management tools. You will get a version where inviting members and creating boards, lists, and cards is easy.

Also, read Trello Vs. Jira work management: How to pick the right option.

How to Use Trello

To enable effective project management for your business, you need to know how to use Trello. Let’s dig into the steps:

Creating an Account

A login page to Trello with a number of different buttons.

To use Trello, you need to first sign up and create an account.

In your web browser, search for the Trello login page.
Bookmark the website for easy future access.
Now, enter your credentials, like user name, password, etc.
You will also find the “Login with Google” along with other log-in options.
After successfully entering the credentials, you will be asked to tick a box mentioning the terms and policies of using Trello.
Once everything is set, you will be redirected to the Trello dashboard. This is the interface where you can add boards, lists, cards, and a lot of other things.
You can add a new project or view the current one in the dashboard.
You can also view the menu at the top-right corner. This menu holds settings, profile details, card activity, help, and more.
You can log out from the similar menu whenever you want.

Understanding Main Components

The visual project and task management tool Trello lets you ideate, plan, and manage your work together with your team in a more productive and organized way.

A screen shot of a project management screen in Trello. — **Source:** Trello

To run the project management process, you need to understand some terms that are mostly used in Trello and are the main components of it. They are as follows:

Board: The Trello Board is where the place where you can keep track of all project data, such as projects, workflows, or teams. Whether creating an article, tracking sales, planning your next party, or launching a new site, the Trello board helps you organize every task, even little details. In addition, it allows you to collaborate with your teams.

Cards: The smallest and the most detailed unit of the Trello Board is the card, representing ideas💡and tasks. This contains something that needed to be done, like a blog, company vacation policies, hiring a marketing manager, and more. You can customize it according to your information. In addition, you can drag and drop cards to show progress across the “lists”. And the best part is there is no limit to adding cards.
Lists: Lists keep cards, or you, can say, specific tasks and pieces of information, organized in a way that you can show the stages of the progress. It is used to add a workflow where you can move cards across every step in the entire process. It can keep track of information and ideas. You can add a number of lists to a board and customize the arrangement and title according to your requirement.

Create a Trello Board

A screen shot of a computer screen with a number of buttons.

Trello board helps you organize everything to be successful and meet your needs. Let’s see how you can create a new board from the Trello dashboard.

From the workspace tab, click on “Create New Board” or Click on the plus button situated in the header to the left of your profile name and select “Create New Board”.
Name the board according to the project you are working on, such as organizing events, managing a blog, tracking sales leads, launching new products, and more.
Now, your project board is ready. When you add a new board, the default setting you will find is “Workspace Visible”. This means anyone on the team can view, edit, and join cards.
If you want to change the settings to private so that only specific members of the board can see it, just change the settings to “Private”.
There is another option, “Public,” which means anyone on the internet can view the board with the link since it ranks on search engines.
If you want to add another workflow, just follow the same process. Furthermore, you can customize your board to give a unique look to your different projects.

Adding Cards and Lists

A screenshot of a calendar app on a tablet.

You can create lists on your board as per your need. For instance, you will find three lists, including “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “Done”. Also, you can create a list of every member of your team. Just follow these simple steps and create a list with ease.

Open the board to create a list. Below the name of your board, click on the “add a list” option.
Name it and click “add list”.
Right below it, you will have the option of adding a card.
Click on the “Add a card” option and enter the title for that card.

Clicking on the card, you can add comments or descriptions for the teams. In addition, you can add checklists, attachments, and labels from the same screen.

Collaborating and Communicating

A screen shot of a screen showing the settings of a web browser.

If you are the head in charge of a project, you need to check project status updates, making sure all the members are working on the given tasks and progressing effectively. To do so, invite your team members to join the Trello board first and check their assigned tasks.

For this,

Click on the top of the board, “Invite,” and select the member to add to that board. Also, you invite them through their name or email address.
At the button of the menu, you will get a sharable link. Drop that special link in an email or Slack channel to invite them to collaborate.
Furthermore, you can download the QR code and let people scan it to join the board.
You can set permissions and define roles transparently as normal, admin, and observer.
You can add members, checklists, dates, attachments, cover, and set deadlines.

While collaborating and communicating with team members, you can add comments to the cards or feedback. You can even mention the @name of the member on your board so that they will receive a notification and view the feedback or comment. The activity feed in Trello keeps all the actions and comments.

Exploring Features

A screen shot of a screen with a number of options.

Features like adding checklists, attachments, and voting are the most useful features in the Trello board. This helps you share your views and works directly so that everything comes in line.

With Checklists, you can know the progress of a member on a given task. Checklists represent smaller and broken-down items within the larger task. The ability to assign and specify each checklist improves visibility and accountability. You can share doc attachments, files, progress reports, client requirements, and more so that your team members can access them easily.

Team members can easily vote on the cards by clicking on the “Vote” on the card back when double click the card. The button color changes to green when you vote. Clicking again on the same button will remove the vote.

How to Delete Trello Board?

A screenshot of a google chrome browser with the option to close the browser.

When your project is completed, and the board is no longer in use. You can delete it permanently by following these simple steps.

Click on your Board menu at the top right corner showing three dots.
Choose the “More” option from that menu.
Next, choose the “Close board” option near the More menu button.
You will see two options – permanently delete the board and reopen it.
If you want to keep it in an archive, just ignore the pop-up.
If you want to permanently delete the board, you can click “Permanently Delete Board”.

Also, read Trello vs. monday.com: Comparing the best project management tools

Conclusion

Project management is a complex task. However, by using a project management tool like Trello, the process of managing projects and tasks can become flawless. Trello is an easy-to-use visual collaboration tool that individuals, as well as companies of different sizes and industries, can use without any hassle.

With its easy-to-use interface, you can start using Trello immediately without needing much time to understand the dashboard. It will enable you to add boards, lists, and cards to effectively manage and track your tasks and projects while being productive.