How do you stay productive and support the flow of creativity? Learn how to use Trello for creativity and support your creative life.
If the average person has over 6,000 thoughts per day, how many does the average creative have? And how can a person keep track of all these ideas without some kind of tool? One answer to this, Trello. Trello is a terrific project management tool well known in the business sector, but it isn’t just for work. Trello can be used for practically anything, including improving creativity.
Creative Ways to Use Trello
- Organize ideas, notes, and progress
- Manage projects across all digital devices
- Plan creative travel trips and retreats
- It’s free and easy to collaborate with others
- Connect other apps to boost productivity and creativity
What is Trello?
Trello is a project management app that helps users be productive by creating project boards to capture ideas, make notes, manage to do’s, organize your day, and much more. Users can access the tool for FREE either by website or downloading an app onto their phones, computers, tablets, and even smartwatches.
Pricing
Free
- Unlimited boards, Unlimited cards, Unlimited lists, and 10MB per File Attachment, 10 team boards,
Business Class ($9.99 per user, per month annually)
- Unlimited boards, Unlimited cards, Unlimited lists, 250MB per File Attachment, Advanced Checklists, Priority support, Observers, Custom Background and images, Unlimited team boards, Unlimited power-ups, and much much more
Enterprise ($17.50 per 100 users, per month, annually)
- Unlimited boards, Unlimited cards, Unlimited lists, 250MB per File Attachment, Advanced Checklists, Priority support, Observers, Custom Background and images, Unlimited team boards, Unlimited power-ups, and much much more
Why Creatives Should Use Trello?
Since its release in 2011, Trello has amassed over 50 million users as of October 2019 and includes well-known companies like Adobe, Google, Kickstarter, iHeartmedia, and many more.
Trello solves the problem of:
- Long email threads
- Wasted meetings
- Accountability
- Clarifying projects
- Forgetfulness
- Transparency
Trello provides:
- Accountability
- Sanity
- Visualization
- Organization
- Cohesion
Useful ways to use Trello:
- Organize your month, week, and days with to-do Lists
- Project management and planning
- Editorial and content calendars
- Travel planning
- Save recipes and plan your meals
- Organize your reading list
- Record milestones and life events
- Organize your hobbies and personal collections
- Plan a dungeons & dragons campaign
Creative Enso Trello Boards
If you’re still wondering, where do I start as a creative with using Trello? Check out these FREE Creative Enso board templates to get you started.
How to Save Trello Templates
- Click the big green “Create board from template” button
- Once you hit Create that board can be edited and you can invite new members – but the template will remain just the same.
If you have any issues, visit this Trello Guide for more options.
Free Templates
Creative Living Templates
- Creative Nexus – Track ideas, creative goals, problems, inspiration, and more.
- Idea Nexus– Track, develop, and save ideas across many different topics.
- Wisdom Library– Save inspiration quotes, thoughts, words, and more.
- Goal Nexus – Save and track your goals in every aspect of your creative life.
- Skill Building– A project planning board for learning new skills.
Travel Templates
- Creative Travel Planner– Travel planner built around inspiring creativity.
- Bucket List– Imagine your ideal creative life with this Trello bucket list.
Writer Templates
- Writer Nexus– Develop story ideas for writers.
- Story Planner– Develop your creative stories with his visual board.
More templates coming soon.
Trello Tips & Tricks
- Add Cover Images
- Choose a Great Background Image for Your Boards
- For task cards choose action words
- Brighten up your boards with colored labels and card covers.
- Celebrate completed tasks by adding one of these emojis — 👖 🎉 🎊 🎇 🎆 ✨– to your “Done” list.
- Highlight the boards you use the most
- Invite someone else to use Trello to get a free month of premium and test more features
- Create multiple cards in 1-click using a text editor or spreadsheet
- Build Better Workflows With Butler Automations
- Rules that are instantly triggered by a set action.
- Buttons that run an action on a card or across an entire board in a single click.
- Due Date commands that run in relation to approaching or past due dates.
- Calendar commands that run at set calendar intervals.
- Try using multiple Trello boards for a cleaner workflow.
Trello Keyboard Shortcuts
- B — Access Board menu. See all your boards from a bird’s eye view. Navigate & hit Enter to open a board.
- N — Add a new card to a list.
- Q — See only your cards. This allows you to quickly filter to just show the Trello cards that are assigned to you on a board.
- F — Use this to easily access the filter feature so you can filter the board and cards by keywords, labels, members, and due dates.
- D — when viewing a card, use this shortcut to make a due date. It will open the due date picker and navigate to a date.
- C — Archive a card. Clean up that clutter!
- SPACE – Assign yourself to a card. This shortcut will add you to that particular card/task.
- ? — Want to see even more shortcuts? Just hit “?” on your board to open up the many shortcuts you can use in Trello.
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
