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Trello for Personal Productivity

Developing a system for boosting personal productivity is no small task, but Trello is here to help.

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Life hack: How can you improve your personal productivity and time management?

Personal productivity is not an innate skill. You are not born with the burning desire to improve your prioritizing and get things done every day. The most seasoned productivity experts have tried and failed many times before finally unlocking their most effective method for achieving their ultimate time management system. So what’s the key to personal productivity? It’s finding the method that works for you.

So whether it’s the Eisenhower Matrix, the Pomodoro technique, a bullet journal, or a different productivity method entirely, understanding different approaches is the first step towards your own personal productivity breakthrough. Once you find the one that clicks—the productivity method that gives you that “A ha!” moment—your productivity will kick into overdrive and you’ll finally find a way to consistently check off all your to-dos, with finesse at that.

The right personal productivity apps are here to help you with setting goals (and achieving them!). When leveraged correctly, you will be able to take all the myriad items out of your brain and put them down in a place where they’ll stay until you’re ready to tackle them. Productivity apps will give you a competitive edge in going from to do to done. These Trello boards and tips are tried and tested from productivity experts themselves. Check out their methods, then pick the one that speaks to you. Copy their boards and make them your own!

Personal Productivity System

Based on the “mise-en-place” or “everything in its place” organization concept, this ultimate weekly task organizer was designed by the co-creator of Trello, and can keep even the busiest to-do list in check:

  • Get a realistic and productive look at your to-do list every day with a morning triage system.
  • Set up an automation station to pipe in meeting requests, emails, and chat messages to an Inbox, where you can sort these items alongside other tasks.
  • Take advantage of Power-Ups like Card Snooze and Card Repeater to tackle the most important items first without getting bogged down in the details.
Open Board

Eisenhower Matrix

A proven productivity technique pioneered by American President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, this board only needs four simple lists to prioritize all of your tasks and to-dos:

  • Organize all your tasks according to priority: Important/Urgent, Important/Not Urgent, Not Important/Urgent, Not Important/Not Urgent
  • Helps you focus on your long-term goals by clearing out distracting tasks that keep you from your most important work.
  • Collaborate with other team members to delegate anything that’s not a top priority, by either adding them to the board or copying those cards to another team board.
Open Board

Weekly Review Process

The weekly review process is a productive habit highly recommended by experts like Getting Things Done author David Allen:

  • Use weekly review checklists to stay on track with your most important goals, improve on your mistakes, keep your workload under control, and head into your next workweek with more momentum.
  • Review all your accomplishments, as well as plan out your next week’s biggest tasks, using a simple To-Do, Doing, Done list structure.
  • Merge work and life to-dos by also using this review time to meal plan, schedule workouts, etc.
Open Board

Mind Map

Mind mapping is a goal-setting technique that visually lays out your plans, interests, and aspirations and creates connections between related ideas:

  • Use lists creatively to brainstorm goals, thoughts, and ideas across the different areas in your life with the whole perspective in view.
  • Add images, links, videos, labels, and attach documents to cards using the Evernote or Google Drive Power-Up to enrich each goal with notes and inspiration.
  • Use checklists to break down goals into actionable steps, add due dates if you want to set deadlines, and invite collaborators onto the board if you want to bring on some accountability partners!
  • For a a more free form experience, consider enabling a Power-Up like SmartDraw to create a diagram or draw a mind map right from your board.
Open Board

Webinars For Personal Productivity

Learn how to boost personal productivity with these free on-demand Trello webinars.

Personal Productivity Hacks Productivity Tips For Teams

Find more webinars here →

Power-Up Your Productivity

Simple, adaptable, customizable. Connect your favorite apps and enable additional features to take your productivity to new heights with Power-Ups.

Calendar

  • See all of your important due dates within a calendar view, and make managing daily, weekly, and monthly to-dos a cinch.
  • Drag and drop cards on the calendar to automagically update the due dates, like when that thing your boss asked you to finish changes to Wednesday, and now you have Tuesday to work on your soon-to-be bestselling novel.
  • Track due dates across all your boards in one place by importing a board’s iCal feed to third party calendars like Google, Apple, and Outlook.
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Card Snooze

  • Your favorite alarm clock feature is also available on a Trello board.
  • Snooze a card to remove it from view, and the card will return to your board at a set date and time.
  • A great way to remove distractions so that you can focus on the tasks that matter most.
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Card Repeater

  • Automate recurring cards and tasks with the Card Repeater Power-Up and give your brain more energy to focus on getting things done.
  • Schedule cards to repeat on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, and an exact copy will appear on the designated list always on time.
  • Build a process into your productivity practice so that important reminders and tasks never fall through the cracks.
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Evernote

  • Turn important notes into actionable tasks and keep track of ideas with the Evernote Power-Up.
  • Create and attach new notes directly from Trello cards in a single click.
  • See real time information from Evernote in Trello, like when a note was last edited so you can see if fellow collaborators have updated notes without having to switch apps.
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Butler

  • Enjoy the finer things in life, at least your Trello life, with a butler for your boards to do the heavy lifting.
  • Automate actions in Trello, and execute them in a single click. (Yes, you’ll have to lift your finger, but only once!)
  • The Butler will even analyze your recent Trello usage history and recommend some automations for your most frequent actions.
  • An automation may, for example, set the due date of a card, remove a label, and move the card to another list, all in one click. The possibilities are endless!
Learn More...

Blog Posts To Up Your Game

In-depth posts for boosting productivity with Trello from industry leaders and the Trello team.

Find Work-Life Focus: A Trello Insider's Guide To Personal Productivity — Justin Gallagher

Learn how the original Trello user, Justin Gallagher, uses Trello to increase his personal productivity each week.

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The Eisenhower Matrix Productivity Method — Lauren Moon

A task prioritization technique that could be the answer to your overloaded to-do list and notification nightmares.

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Want To Boost Your Personal Productivity? — Lauren Moon

The best tips, tricks, apps & frameworks from leading productivity experts to set goals, manage your time and be more productive.

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How To Bullet Journal Using A Trello Board — Lauren Moon

Learn how to transform your bullet journal into an easily accessible and shareable digital tool by using a Trello board.

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Get productivity tips, workflows, and much more on the Trello Blog!

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