As college students start to get back on campus, everyone attempts to figure out how they are going to organize their semester. While in previous years I have opted for the traditional paper planner, this year I decided to try something new. I started using an online planner called Trello.
Trello, according to its website, is a visual collaboration tool that creates a shared perspective on any project. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your personal and work life in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way. This works for everything from a family reunion, to launching a new app, to building a new kitchen.
What makes Trello awesome for college students?
Boards
A board represents a project or a place to keep track of information. It helps you organize your personal tasks or collaborate with your colleagues, family, or friends. I’ve found that boards make the most sense when I use them to separate my classes and organizations I am involved in.
My board I have set up, is for my social media course.
This allows me to visualize each course individually and focus on just that task or project. Boards have some pretty interesting features, but my favorite has to be that you can add a fun background for each board. All of my backgrounds are inspirational pictures just to give motivation throughout the day.
Lists
Lists go on boards and keep cards organized in their various stages of progress. Trello.com describes lists as a place where you can create a workflow where cards are moved across from start to finish. It can also simply act as a place to keep track of ideas and information. There’s no limit to the number of lists you can add to a board, and they can be arranged however you like. All of my academic boards have the staple lists: instructor information, reminders, brain dump, assignments, and tests/exams, and I can add others as needed such as a progress board for semester long projects.
On my “Weekly Game Plan” board I have lists dedicated to each day of the week. On each list I have stationary cards for my classes and reoccurring meetings, and then I add in other obligations such as sorority socials and work meetings as they pop up.
Trello‘s biggest assets are its overview visualization and ability to be personalized. The way I organize my lists can vary, but in general allow me to not only see what I have to do this month, but also what I have to do all semester.
Cards
Cards are used to represent tasks or ideas. A card can be something that needs to get done like a blog post to be written or something that needs to be remembered like company vacation policies.
Cards have a front face which you see on the lists, but once clicked on reveals a card back. Card backs hold three important features: descriptions, comments/activity, and the add toolbar.
On the card back I can view my discussion post assignment, the due date, and the description section, which contains the assignment instructions and a checklist for each piece of the assignment I need to complete.
Trello also enables these really awesome add-ons known as PowerUps. They bring additional features or integrate apps you already use like Google Drive or Evernote.
Here are the PowerUps:
Email to Board: You can use this feature to send your emails directly to your Trello Board. Every one of your Trello boards has a unique email address. The subject of the email will become the name of the card, and the body of the email will become the description of the card. I use this to track emails sent from my Practicum advisor because there is no hub in GeorgiaView that can be used to post assignments, and I don’t want to miss an email.
Custom Fields: Add more structure, such as text, numbers, dates, a checkbox, or a drop-down list. That can be transformed into locations, birthdays, phone numbers, and more. These items can be visible on both the front and back of the card. I use them to add locations and dates that are not due dates to my cards on my weekly schedule.
Butler: Automate your Trello boards with rules, scheduled commands, or custom buttons. I use this to automate every assignment card I add on an individual class board to automatically show up on my assignments board.
I suggest using Trello academically for things such as keeping a weekly schedule, tracking research projects, group project management, and more social or college-wide projects like sorority or student organization executive board collaboration.