How to create a new board in Trello
Trello is one of the most flexible and easy to use project management systems. So in this video, I'm sharing with you everything you need to know to get started with Trello, whether you're a beginner, or if you're just looking for a refresher.
Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And let's start off with the Trello home screen.
Now, if you're brand new to Trello, you may not have a single board present here. That's fine. Let's get started with creating our first board.
In the top right-hand corner, you'll see this plus button. By selecting the plus button, we can then select Create a board.
The very first thing that we need to do is give this board a name. Now, in most cases, your boards are going to represent a project or maybe your own personal to-do list.
In this case, I'm just gonna call this Special Project here. Now, we can next choose what kind of background we want.
We can always change this later, but I'm gonna choose the default blue or just a simple blue background for us to work with. Lastly, I'm gonna make this one private, so no one else on my team has access to it.
Whether you're using Trello just for yourself or with a team, choose who has access to your boards. With our name set, we can now select Create board, and now we have a brand new Trello board to work with.
Now, at first glance, this may seem a little intimidating, because we have a blank slate in front of us.
How to add & edit lists in Trello
We don't even have a single list represented here, but let's get started by creating a very simple workflow. Trello, in most cases, is best used to have a number of different stages in which Trello calls lists.
So, let's give this first list a label of Ideas. Let's give another list a label of To Do.
Let's give another one a list of actually Doing, because that can be a big difference between just something you want to do and something that you're actually engaged with. And lastly, I'm going to create one called Done.
Now, you can add as many lists as you like here within Trello, simply by selecting this Add another list option. And if you want to change the order, you can just click and drag and move your lists around.
How to add & edit cards in Trello
Next up, we need to take a look at how we can add cards to each of these lists. Cards are what are represented within these lists, but can be moved to other lists as well.
So, under ideas, maybe I'm considering writing a book. Maybe I need to email my team about next week's meeting.
And maybe another idea I have is to create a new website. All right, so now I've got a few different tasks listed here within this first list.
Now, many things in Trello are drag and drop, so if I want to reorder this list and put create a new website to the top, I can just click and hold and bring it to the top of that list.
But this drag and drop functionality also pertains to moving cards into different lists. In most cases, our goal is to bring a card from the left-hand side of your board all the way to the right, where your last list will be called Done, Complete, or Finished.
So, once I've completed finishing this new website, I can drag it over here into this Done list. Now, at this stage, you can see that things are fairly simple.
We've got the names of our projects or our tasks here on our cards, and we've created our lists where we're going to drag things through their different stages. But this is the beauty of Trello.
How to view & edit the inside of a Trello card
We can get a nice, high-level view of what's going on here, but if we click on one of these cards, we open up to a lot more detail. So, here within the back of the card, we can always come up and change the name if desired.
But perhaps the first place you'll want to go is the description area. Here under the description, we can add as many additional details or links as we like.
Maybe we can add things such as needs to be 500 pages long, needs to be published by the end of 2022. We can add as many notes as we'd like here, and then click Save.
So, you don't have to clutter the name of your card up top. You can add as many details as you'd like here within the description.
But we don't have to stop at just the description area. On the right-hand side, we have a number of different ways.
How to add a checklist to a Trello card
In which we can add further information. The third one down is listed as a Checklist, and this is a great way to add sub-tasks or to add other things that you don't want to forget when it comes to this particular card.
So, if I select the Checklist button, I can either leave the title as Checklist, but in this case, I'm going to say, Remember to do this, and I'm going to say Add.
So, this is going to serve as a list of sub-tasks, other things that I need to keep in mind. So, I might want to add things such as research my topic, hire an editor, and find a quiet place to write.
So, these are my three tasks or three checklist items, which I've added to this card, and as I go through these steps, you can see that it's going to track my progress here within the card.
And if I close the card, I can still see my checklist progress on the front. Let's open up our card once again.
How to add labels to a Trello card
And look at some of the other options we have available to us. Just above the Checklist button, we also have the option to add labels.
Labels can be a great way to categorize and easily see your different cards on your board. So, if I click labels here, and let's select the green label, maybe I want everything that is a writing activity to have this green label.
I'm gonna hit save here and then select that label, and now that will be applied to this particular card. Now, I'm not limited to just one label.
I can add as many labels as I want. Maybe I want to use this red color as far as an urgency label, so I'm going to hit save here and select red for urgent.
And now, I can have that directly attached to this card, and I can easily see this on the front of the card as well.
Here's a pro tip: If you take your cursor and click directly on the label, it will expand and give you the label name. If you want to go back to just viewing the color again, put your cursor over top, click, and it will be minimized to that color.
This can be a great way to see the differences between your cards as you're managing your different tasks.
How to add a due date to a Trello card
We can also apply a due date to any cards. So, maybe I want to be able to write this book or have it completed by the end of August.
I'm going to select August 31st and hit Save. Now I have a due date, which will also act as a notification as I get closer to this date, so an easy way to track my progress and make sure that I'm not left behind.
How to add attachments to a Trello card
Below dates, we have the option to add an attachment. By clicking this, we can add an attachment from our computer, so maybe I want to add this graphic, for example.
I can add this image directly to this card, or I can also connect to other services, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive. This can be very useful, especially if you would just like to link to a particular folder and not necessarily a particular file.
As you can see, in this case, Trello also gives us the ability to add images to the cover of our cards, so depending on how you want to use Trello, you can see that image on the front of your card as well.
How to use search within a Trello board
Now, as you start to add more and more cards to your boards, it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of all of your tasks. That's where the search feature within Trello becomes so important.
In the top right-hand corner, if we select Show menu and then select Search cards, we can search for different pieces of information in a variety of different ways. First off, I can search for anything that has the word book in it.
Here, you can see, I have two cards that have book in the title, so now I can just deal with and work with these particular cards. If I remove that search term, you can see, I can also filter by labels.
So, if I just want to look at things that have the urgent label, I can select that label, and now only those cards are displayed. You will see, up here in this green area, it's telling me how many total search results I have, and then, at the top of each list, it is telling me how many total cards are within that list.
So, for example, even though we don't see any cards under the To Do list, we know that there are two cards that exist that do not include this label. We can also search by members and also by due dates, so if I just want to see what's due in the next week, it will remove everything else and I can focus on these cards.
Keep in mind when using this search cards feature, you can still click on these cards and update them and interact with them. To quickly remove the filter, all you need to do is select this X under the green icon.
How to add Power-Ups in Trello
Now, as you begin working with Trello, you may find that there are some features or functionality which you cannot find. In that case, I would encourage you to click on the Show menu option and select Power-Ups.
Trello gives us a vast library of additional features and additional functionality, including integrations with some popular tools that you already use. For example, one of my favorite Power-Ups is the Custom Fields Power-Up, and if I add this Custom Fields Power-Up, this will give me the ability to add additional fields to the back of each of my cards.
There are far too many Power-Ups for us to review in today's video, but if you'd like to learn more, be sure to check this video in the top right-hand corner.
How to archive Trello cards
Now, as you continue to use your Trello board and eventually drag more and more cards into your Done list, or Completed, or whatever you choose to name your final list, this may start to add up with a long list of cards which you don't necessarily want to be viewing forever.
In this case, what I would recommend is for you to archive the cards in this list. Archiving will remove the card from the board, but it is still searchable, and you can still always reactivate it if you want to bring it back to this board.
So, in this case, all we need to do is select the three dots up above, and we can select Archive all cards in this list. In this case, we continue to keep the list.
The list has not been removed, only the cards in that particular list. So, a great tip if you're wanting to keep a nice, clean, and efficient Trello board.
Now, if you'd like to learn even more about Trello, including advanced features, I would encourage you to click the playlist on the screen in front of you.
And if you would like some personalized Trello consulting, you can find out more details at simpletivity.com/trello.
Thank you so much for watching today's video, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
