Hi Everybody,

I am still recovering from an almost total organization breakdown these past two years (based mostly on health issues that have required almost full time attention), and so many tasks to address, that I am feeling a bit paralyzed any time I try to organize the tasks or even try to accomplish a few. Thankfully my calendar/event notifications continues to work, so that is one organizational tool that does not need attention. Tasks and projects, however, are a completely different story. I moved from Ecco to Toodledo a number of years ago, and while I admire its features (and miss Ecco), it just is not a program that I want to open and use. It is not necessarily Toodledo's fault, but I need help at both work and at home, and was doing a bit of CRIMP research last night in hopes of finding something that might motivate me on the home front.

This morning, I came across Trello, a program that I initially dismissed last night. After more careful examination, I found that it offered simplicity and flexibility to somewhat customize how it can be used. In the same way that Ecco allowed you to customize your tabs, Trello, to a lesser extent (and emphasis on the "lesser"), gave me that feeling that I could somewhat alter it to better make it work for me, as opposed to the other way around. Then, I thought more about it and wondered if it was really just a more graphic version of a task manager like Toodledo? To some degree, this is probably true, but if the interface is more appealing, does it really matter?

I would be curious if anybody is using Trello, or a program similar to it? I do not necessarily need collaboration tools, but if I could get my wife to find it useful, I imagine that it would be useful for projects that we are working on jointly. Any thoughts?

--Ken

I like Trello, but I found it was lacking a few features I needed like the ability to track time and to see late tasks across multiple boards.,

I went through weeks of research, using free trials of all the project management tools recommended to me and the one I decided on was teamwork.com. I am not affiliated with them, I just found they had the right balance of ease of use and affordability.

Having said that, I often get my coaching clients to use Trello during our coaching sessions because it is so easy to use.

Garland Coulson wrote:

I like Trello, but I found it was lacking a few features I needed like
the ability to track time and to see late tasks across multiple boards.,

I was also concerned about the time issue and not being able to see late tasks across all boards, but I was willing to give it a try because it is simple, yet useful. Some simple programs just lack any useful features, and are more like electronic post-it note applications. And, its android application seems fast and easy. I am willing to try it for a bit, knowing its limitations. Time will tell if what it lacks becomes a problem.

--Ken

I use Trello for a few very specific purposes, for example, I organize the books I publish in four columns (Potential, Progress, Pending, and Published). It's a nice, at-a-glance view of the titles in my catalog, and I can easily move cards from one column to another as books move through the production cycle. The back of each Trello card is sufficient for a few notes or comment. The due date feature comes in handy to advise me when I have to begin prodding an author for output.

I'd use Trello for other things, but the dealbreaker (for me) is that I can export data only as a JSON file. Useless. I did find a plug-in that enables export to a spreadsheet; that's nice, though what Trello needs is plain text or Word export.

Given the lack of export options, Trello isn't an integral part of my workflow - it's just a nice little adjunct, where I can organize certain types of data visually, with little overhead. I could probably do the same things on the desktop with Notebox Disorganizer or Pigeonhole, but I like having Trello at my fingertips no matter where I'm working.

Garland Coulson wrote:

I like Trello, but I found it was lacking a few features I needed like
the ability to track time and to see late tasks across multiple boards.,

I was playing with Trello a bit last night and found something intresting about the color/label tags. While the six colors tags are constant throughout the boards and organizations, the labels that you can assign to each color are controlled at the board level. So, red can mean "priority" in one board and "next action" in another. Convenient, but it can be confusing if you give a color a different label in each board. But, you can globally search Trello by either label or color, and this is very handy if you choose to give one color a general meaning regardless of label. So, for example if red is always items that are needing immediate attention, then just seachnfor the color red. Alternately, if you need to search a board or a group of boards that share a common label associated with the red color, but may be different from other red colors, then you can search by that label instead of the color red. Very flexible and very handy. So, while Trello only offers minimal date-based actions, it does allow a way to globally find things like urgently tagged cards.

--Ken

Ken, if you like Trello's concept, I suggest you Google the term Kanban and look at a few of the digital Kanban tools available; I'm not saying this in order to add to your overwhelm, just to give you the broader perspective of agile project management tools. You might also want to read Personal Kanban http://www.personalkanban.com (book and more).

Within the context of 'traditional' or 'linear' project management, after similarly extensive research, I agree with Garland's selection of Teamwork. That said, I would choose such a tool mainly to support collaboration (see http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3328 not so much for own use.

Last but not least, having gone through some major challenges myself lat year, which impacted my operational situation, I would suggest Mark Forster's books, in particular Do It Tomorrow.

Another vote for Do It Tomorrow.

I also like the concept of Personal Kanban (PK) but wasn't overwhelmed by the PK book - the 1xx pages book could easily be reduced to 20-30 pages. Haven't tried the PK software, right now I use a flipchart plus cards.

Thank you for the recommendations Alexander and Franz. My library does not carry the book, so I will have to see if I can find a copy at a bookstore. I had a brief look at the PK web site, and really need to spend more time looking at what they are recommending. We have recently starting implementing some kanban practices at work, and I am curious to see how it works. In the mean time, I am still playing with Trello. I found a calendar view in the program today, so it has a few more features that could be useful. I know that it is not the answer to all of my problems, but it is an easy tool to pick up and start using immediately, and there is something to be said for that. I still find some of Toodledo's commands/features hidden after several years of use, and that frustrates me.

Thanks again,

--Ken

I subscribed to Trello for a year.

What I really liked about it was its plain-ness and simplicity. A task manager is used several times every day but often for less than a minute each time, so to achieve comprehension in that window, for me it needs to be plain and simple. I'm happy without much colour and complexity. Trello fitted that bill.

What I didn't so much take to was the kanban system. For those who don't know it, I do recommend Alexander's suggestions: Wikipedia also has a (briefer) treatment. I can see where kanban may have value. But personally, I need the pressure and urgency of a time-dated list or a Gantt chart.

So for me - right presentation, wrong philosophy.

I've tried Trello and didn't really get on with it.

A similar iOS app I enjoy using very much, however - although reluctantly I've not made it my main to-do manager because it's only available for iOS - is Taskboard, which has been around for ages but has recently acquired some new features, including 'due date', multiple 'projects (meaning sets of boards) and the ability to colour any task card or board any colour you like.

It's a lovely, clean app. For those totally focused on iOS, I thoroughly recommend it.

Hugh wrote:

What I didn't so much take to was the kanban system. For those who don't
know it, I do recommend Alexander's suggestions: Wikipedia also has a
(briefer) treatment. I can see where kanban may have value. But
personally, I need the pressure and urgency of a time-dated list or a
Gantt chart.

I think this is dependent on the work you do. With Kanban, you focus on pulling tasks from the system; traditional or deadline-based systems on the other hand push tasks into your frame of attention. In the corporate world, there virtually is no way to escape the push-mentality. If you work on your own, though, switching to the pull-philosophy has its benefits. I found it suits creative work well, including programming and writing. You get to pick what's next, that's nice at first. On the other hand you have to train yourself to form healthy working habits, or else you won't actually do anything.

Trello is great for small teams and project organization I find.

Steve Pavlina (personal development guy) uses Trello for his solo-projects and thinks the free version suffices: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2014/01/trello/

I just started using Trello yesterday as a day-to-day task manager, I find having draggable cards/items works really well for me and is much more intuitive than due dates, managing separate lists, etc.

I took a look at Taskboard- the screenshots look almost identical to Trello! The Taskboard UI seems a little smoother at first glance, but Trello's is not bad (just a little clunky in spots), and offers a lot for free-
-Multiple boards (which are called 'projects' in Taskboard. 'Boards' in Taskboard are 'Lists' in Trello)
-Organizations, or sets of boards (which Taskboard doesn't have)
-Sync across iPad, iPhone, and web app (Taskboard is iPad only)
-Sharing and other multi-user features such as notifications (I don't use this)

MadaboutDana wrote:

I've tried Trello and didn't really get on with it.

A similar iOS app I enjoy using very much, however - although
reluctantly I've not made it my main to-do manager because it's only
available for iOS - is Taskboard, which has been around for ages but has
recently acquired some new features, including 'due date', multiple
'projects (meaning sets of boards) and the ability to colour any task
card or board any colour you like.

It's a lovely, clean app. For those totally focused on iOS, I thoroughly
recommend it.