Trello Productivity Tips and Tricks

At the beginning of the year, PMG decided to roll out a common project management tool across all departments. In the past, communication was lost in large email chains and agency teams were disconnected. Ultimately, we chose Trello, a popular kanban-style app. So far mostly everyone at PMG has been pleased with it. Still, the default feature set of Trello may leave some users wanting more.

Here are some of the things I have found that made adopting Trello a little easier:

First, did you know Trello has a calendar? It does! Why does that matter? Well, if you assign your tasks a due date they will show up on your calendar. This is a really helpful way to get an idea of how to prioritize what needs to be done and in what order. Activating the calendar is really easy. When you are looking at one of your boards, click the ‘Menu’ button in the top right of the screen. From there click ‘Power-Ups’. Now you will see a pop up of the different add ons you can enable. Click ‘Calendar’ and then ‘Enable’. Pretty easy right? Now next to the ‘Menu’ button you will have a ‘Calendar’ button that will show you your calendar for this board. Keep in mind that cards from other boards will not show up on this calendar.

You can find a more detailed and visual writeup on the official Trello site here.

Now that’s all find and dandy but what if you already have a calendar, like — Google Calendar — that you want to use instead? Once again, Trello has you covered. Head back to the calendar power-up and at the bottom of the popup you will find a link. Copy this and head to your Google calendar. On the left side of the page under ‘My calendars’ you will find ‘Other calendars’. Click the dropdown arrow next to this and then select ‘Add by URL’. Paste in the link from Trello and click ‘Add calendar’. If all goes well, your Trello calendar will now be pulled into your Google calendar. If not, head back to the calendar power-up and click ‘Regenerate Your Feed URL’. This will give you a new link to paste into your Google calendar.

There, that should do it. Pretty cool, huh?

Once again, you can find better instructions on the official Trello site here.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t avoid the long email chain, especially when you are communicating with clients.

How can you keep track of these conversations for your personal management without cluttering up your team’s Trello board? With Google Tasks of course! Navigate to any email you need to refer to and click the ‘More’ box at the top of the screen. From there select ‘Add to Tasks’. This gives you a handy box at the bottom of your screen similar to GChat. Inside you will find all your tasks in the form of a list. Each entry has a checkbox next to it so you can mark when it’s complete. Also, if you need to dive back into the email there is a link just below the title. You can even give these tasks due dates if you need to prioritize them further. If you ever click the ‘X’ and get rid of the task box you can always access it again by clicking the ‘Mail’ dropdown in the top left and selecting ‘Tasks’.

For more information click here.

By my back-of-the-napkin calculations, I’ve just doubled your productivity. You’re welcome! Now, what will you do with all the time you save?