As you can imagine, making preparations to move across the world, is a very exhausting and intense and complicated process. I mean, we are literally packing up our entire life (6 years of marriage, 2 kids later, and a whole lot of crap, and shipping it across the Atlantic ocean.
Its wild, and a lot.
Since I practically live on my phone, I was always searching for some way to keep my to do lists there, but I never found a good app for it. So by default, I always stuck with pen and paper in my moleskin.
Which by the way, still works great for me. But for me alone. Once you have to involve other people into your lists (AKA my wife) it gets much more complicated to keep a running list.
Meet Trello
I think I am late to the party on this one, but you know what, I don’t care. At my new company, Kahena, we use Trello. I got invited to the boards, even before I officially started, and passively poked around… and accidentally stalked my bosses personal board and got caught… oops! 😉
What Is Trello?
People have been asking me this a lot lately when I tell them how much I love it (so I obsess about things…).
Well, Trello says about themselves:
“Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.”
And I could in theory end there, because that paragraph sums it up nicely, but let me explain to you how I use it and just how much this tool has changed my life… CHANGED MY LIFE I TELL YA!
ORGANIZE ALL THE THINGS!
Everything is now organized. I know where things are, when they are happening, what I need to do etc. Nothing falls off my radar and nothing gets lost. If I have a file that is part of a bigger conversation, I can actually upload it to Trello from: my computer, dropbox or even Drive, so it is right there where I need it.
The biggest value I see in this is that, I never have to go running around looking for a document again, it is right there with my appointment. And in general, to store things, they all live on dropbox anyway so to have the two play nice is extremely beneficial to me.
Big Time Collaboration
This is hands down my favorite feature in Trello. Collaboration made simple. Notice the red boxed areas here. In Trello, you can delegate like nobodies business. So here, I have added to this board my wife and our good friend Rachie Gold who is moving with her husband and adorable kids to Israel down the block from us (which we just found out is actually next door… strange right 🙂 !!).
We have been using Trello to research washer and dryers among other things. What is cool about this is that, not only can this job be assigned to them as well, but if I find information, I can call them out by name too so they get a notification on it.
Checklist Junkie
One of the added features to help you are checklists within boards. For example, if I have a grocery list that my wife puts in Trello, I can systematically, check off each, as opposed to running the risk of referencing an email a million times and “hoping” (“praying”) I didn’t forget anything… (anyone else know what i’m saying??). Here is a checklist we are using to keep track of the information and next steps for the container that we are sending to Israel.
Reminders
I can easily set reminders to go off and let me know when I have to finish or even start a task. This is ridiculously valuable because now, I can just set it and forget it. When the time comes for me to do a task, boom! it shows up. No more forgetting things for me.
Productivity to the extreme!
Mobile Interface
Like I said before, I live on my phone. But this really sealed the deal for me. Between my Google Calendar, Dropbox, and now Trello (all synced with my wife) I have everything everywhere.
And the interface is really beautiful and easy to use!
Trello WINS Life!
To sum it up, while I love the rush of lifting my pen to cross something off my to-do list, Trello is EVERYTHING I ever could have wanted in an app and I am happy to leave the scribbling behind. It is simple to use, efficient, and effective. I am able to prioritize any task I have and not run the risk of over committing. And best of all, When it comes down to it, if necessary, I am able to delegate to other people.
So a big, hearty thank you to Trello. I don’t say this often about anything, but your app has literally changed my life.
(and if Trello is reading this, please share this with any doubters… or just send them to me and I will set them straight).