It may not come as much of a surprise that I am a huge Trello fan. If you missed How to Create Your Editorial Calendar or Creating Workflows with Trello, be sure to go back and read both of those blog posts.

Trello has become a crucial piece of my day with sometimes a few boards pinned in my browser, so that I can quickly tab between them when needed (P.S. I love hotkeys. CTRL+TAB on PC will switch between tabs you have open in your browser.) I have tried to use paper planners but they are just not for me. I buy all the pretty planners, write down some stuff, and never open them again. Let’s face it – I have one of 3 things within arm’s reach at all times – my computer, iPhone, or iPad and it just makes sense to have my to-do list right there and not in a notebook buried on my desk or at the bottom of a bag.

Finding a way to get the most of Trello when it came to planning my week did take some time and a little trial and error. But today I am breaking down exactly how I map out my week and actually get things done.

Starting with a fresh board, I have eight columns – one for every day of the week and one for general, unassigned things. This general column is where I jot down all of the things that I remember I need to do but am not sure when I will fit them in. This puts everything in a single place for when I pull out my priority matrix before assigning tasks for the week. Yep, just because I think I need to do something doesn’t mean I schedule it right away. It has to pass my priority test to make it on the calendar or it gets outsourced or scratched. (Read more about using a priority matrix here.)

The Blank Slate

After I rank all of my tasks, I can then get to work adding them to the weekly calendar. This is where the seven days comes into play. You can shorten this calendar by grouping the weekend or cutting it out altogether if you never work on the weekends. You can essentially tweek it to work for you no matter what your schedule looks like.

The Weekly Calendar

Now is the time to start putting my tasks on the calendar. Oftentimes, I discover that my tasks actually need to be broken down into multiple tasks and divided up to keep me from being overwhelmed and not getting anything done.

This is totally normal. I start with my major goal for the week. This really helps me to plan out the tasks in an order that will best help me reach that goal on time. If my primary goal is to publish a new blog post on Wednesday, then I wouldn’t schedule time to create the graphics on Friday. That just wouldn’t make sense.

If I know I have posts that needs to go out midweek, I have to check with the status of it, make sure it is written and edited, graphics are created, and it is scheduled along with any social media posts that may accompany it. There are quite a few pieces that go into crossing off one task on my list, and this is why breaking them down into smaller chunks makes it easier to manage and schedule.

Weekly Goal Breakdowns

I typically don’t set arbitrary to-dos like have 300 new email subscribers. There is a specific task that is related to that, and I would just waste time trying to figure out a way to find random people and get them to sign up. But what I might do is decide that a popular old blog post needs to be updated with a new content upgrade. This means I need to create the content upgrade, set up the sequence in ConvertKit, and put together all the other pieces in that puzzle, so that by the end of the week, I may see the new subscribers I had wanted to get.

Recurring Tasks

Using Trello also makes it easy for me to keep recurring tasks on my calendar. If I know that every Tuesday there is a prompt in a Facebook group to share a new blog post, I make a note to go check it out, share my post, and fill my social media queue with awesome content from others in my niche. And because this happens every week, I don’t need to add a new card for it. I just look at the calendar and know that it’s there. Easy peasy.

Using Trello for planning my week also keeps me from feeling like I need to fill in time blocks on a traditional planner or calendar. I work from home with 3 kids – 2 in diapers and 1 that I homeschool. Our days are not scheduled to the minute. We have a list and cross things off as we squeeze them in. And more often than not, our list is done before lunch. Crazy, huh?

Using Trello also means that I can keep links to things that I will need for my tasks right there. So if I need to accomplish something from my phone, I can pull up the task and schedule the social media post with the graphic while waiting in line at the grocery store. I don’t need to go home, open my computer, and dig for the digital folder just to get to one graphic. That is a lot of unnecessary work for a simple task that could be set up once as a recurring task.

Getting the most out of Trello when planning my day wouldn’t be possible without the Google Drive extension. Honestly, I store all of my files there and it only makes sense to be able to see and access them all from one place. Have I mentioned that this costs way less than a paper planner? Take whatever you would spend on the planner and subtract the whole price. Yep. Trello is totally free to use.