Trello Tips For Stressed Writers And Authors

Feeling stressed? Let’s look at some Trello tips to help you to manage your writing business. You may not be using Trello to its fullest potential; it’s a simple app, but powerful.

Trello can be free, depending on how you use it and it’s one of my favorite business apps. It decreases stress by helping you to feel in control—you can take in a huge amount of information at a glance when you look at a board.

Trello tips to get started

The app is easy to use; it takes just a minute or two to set up your first boards. You can even have your boards set up for you, via the many free templates. I’ve found the Daily Task Management template especially useful and recommend it to anyone who’s getting started.

I like to set up boards as I go. If you’re working with clients, set up a board for each client. Are you self-publishing? Consider setting up a board for each book you’ve published, as well as a board for books you have in your production pipeline.

Check out Trello’s blog for tips and workflows.

Let’s look at some tips for you if you’re feeling stressed with everything that’s going on.

1. Stress less with a Decision Journal and board

If you’re stressed over a decision you need to make, journaling will help. Over the years, I’ve discovered that not only am I more relaxed when I journal, I’m more productive too.

Have you heard of a Decision Journal? I heard about this form of journaling at Trello’s blog:

A decision journal… (can be) something you’ll use for reflection. By documenting and periodically reviewing the decisions you make over time, you’ll get a better grasp on your state of mind and identify things like trends or common traps you find yourself falling into.

If you tend to second-guess yourself once you’ve made a decision, as I do, you’ll find a Decision Journal useful. Recently, I dithered over whether I should continue a series of novels, or jump into a new genre.

Later, reading my reasons for choosing the new genre option helped me immensely: I stayed on track. The Decision Journal also helped me to review good and bad decisions I’ve made. With luck, I’ll make fewer dumb decisions in future.

Try creating a Decision board. It’s useful to keep track of others’ comments and your research. I take photos of notes I’ve made in my handwritten journal to add to the board.

2. Stress-free email when you send messages to Trello’s boards and cards

You can create cards via email. Not only does each board you create have its own email address, so does each card.

Find any board’s email address when you open the board. Click Menu/ More/ Email-To-board Settings. Now you can not only send messages to the board, you can also forward email to the board.

Want to find a card’s email address? Open the card, scroll down the menu to Share/ Email for this card. When you send a message to a card it appears as a comment on the card.

Try sending email to Trello. Who knows, you might clear your Inbox. 🙂

3. Avoid stress and find what you need: connect cards and boards

Avoid stress by finding what you need via Trello. Yesterday I wasted 15 minutes looking for a client’s file. I created the file several months ago, but when I searched my computer, Dropbox, iCloud… nothing. Horrors… did I delete the file?

Finally I found the file in Google Docs. Phew…

I connected the file to a card on the client’s Trello board immediately. Not only can you link a card to external files, you can also connect Trello boards and cards.

Click on the Attachments link in the menu of any card to see your options. Select Trello in Attachments, then search for a card or board to add to the current card.

More Trello tips for your writing business

Check out Get Motivated And Organized: 5 Trello Tricks For Your Business.

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