Speaker 1: If you're looking for better ways to stay on top of your projects inside a Trello, you're going to love this episode because I'm going to walk you step by step behind the scenes of how we set up and manage every single project in our company. And this is something that you could use, whether you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, an executive, a teacher. You're going to absolutely love it, especially if you're collaborating with clients or a team. What's up, Amelia? I'm Kim Jimenez, and we're going to get our Trello on. So the first tip I have for you when it comes to managing your projects inside of Trello is to make sure that you've set up your board correctly. And we're going to go ahead and do that right now behind the computer. Now, because there's so many different ways in which you can set up your project management board, I highly recommend getting some ideas, some inspiration for how you want to handle and manage your own. This is ours. This is just one way of doing it, but I thought it would be helpful just to walk you around mine. I'm going to give you an idea of what that looks like and how we've set it up because this board functions as the primary way for all of us to collaborate and collect and manage our projects. It's quite busy. But even if you're not collaborating with different team members or you don't need other people outside of you to access this board, I still recommend this workflow. Even if I was the only one working out of this board, I would set it up in the exact same way. And here's why. Having a place where you can look at your projects at a glance and manage them systematically is key. So we obviously have here a start here board or list in this board on how to use a board for our team members, but you don't have to have that. Again, if you're not collaborating with team members, you don't need to do that. I find it very helpful. There's instructions on how to use each board, what each list means, and just little tips and tricks that can really help a brand new member of the team. There's also project resources in terms of like, hey, this is how we label our cards in this project board. This is where you can ask questions in the next team meeting. And then, you know, if you need logins or documents or anything else, you can just click here and it'll take you to our team info hub, which is a different board. So again, kind of setting this up in a way that really makes sense for you is key. Now, every single month, I like having two different lists in this board. Number one, what we're working on this month. And if, again, you're writing solo, what you're working on this month, that way you can see larger initiatives, things that will require either multiple months to complete, maybe even a year to complete, right? They're longer term tasks, as well as projects that have multiple phases or just a variety of tasks or require more of your time and attention than just a quick task that you're going to complete this week. So that's something that's really important for me. What we're going to work on this month, all those cards go into this list right here and each project has its own card attached to it, right? So each card represents a project and inside we have a description of the project, different workflows, and then to-dos depending on each department, who's going to take care of it, communication down here. So that's just how we set it up and this gives me a chance every single, at the end of every month, I look at what we're going to work on the next month. I review every single project with my team. We look at, okay, what do we need to change? Is there something that we need to extend the deadline of or do we need to set a new deadline? Where are we at in terms of progress, etc.? And this is a great thing to do. A monthly review of your goals is key. Cannot stress that enough. It's part of your productivity workflow and something that will really help you stay on task and when you reach the end of the year, you'll look back and say, holy crap, this is awesome. I stayed on track. These are the goals I set the beginning of the year. This is how I pivoted and this is how I accomplished them and that to me is key. Now, there's always going to be things that are coming up that might not be super important right at this moment and that's where we keep what's coming down the pipeline as well as a project shelf. So this project shelf here, this list is all the way on this side because it's not as important. These are things that we want to get to at some point, but they're not important to our goals right now, right? They're not urgent. And so I've had to learn as an entrepreneur and as a creative to sift through my project ideas and instead of trying to overwhelm my team with a million different things and overwhelm myself with a million different things, just put things that are good ideas on a project shelf and then move things out of the shelf once I'm ready to work on them. So that's kind of how that list works right here. And then what's coming up next, these are projects that we're going to be working on in the next couple months and I've sifted through, right? The project shelf, pulled the ones that are relevant to right now and those sit here. Now in the what we're working on this month, these are immediate projects and initially they're all right on this list right here. All of them are here. Once we start them, we kind of categorize them into your profit generating projects. These are the ones that are the most important for the month. So as you can see, like our whole entire approach is all about like specificity. This is a workflow that works for us, but you may or may not need to do this, right? Totally up to you and to your needs. I like having clarity on the profit generating projects so that I stay focused on what's going to move the needle forward in my brand, what's going to pay the bills, what's going to allow us to pay our team on time, to bring on other people, to grow and to meet our revenue generating goals. Now there's other projects, right? Of course, there's going to be other projects that are just as important but are not necessarily profit generating and we will move that to the started list from the what we're working on this month. So once we've started a project, we'll move it to this list right here and then the completed projects, like very simple, right? Using the same approach that we talked about in the part one of this series. By the way, if you haven't checked it out, all about how to use Trello as a beginner. We're moving again our cards from left to right, right? From initiative to kind of working on to completed. That's all we're doing right here and you can see these are a list of all the projects we've completed so far this year and we'll leave them there so that we can review them at the end of the year. We can celebrate. You can see I have a little, you know, icon right there just to represent that we've completed a project and just make it a little bit more fun. And then there's an extra list here on the left hand, sorry, the right hand side. And this is all about projects that are on pause, right? Things change, life happens, business happens. And so sometimes you just have to press the pause button and work on something that's more important or wait on something else that needs to happen before you can tackle that project. And that's what this list is for us. So very simple and straightforward. This is how we organize our Big Fat Projects board and we literally work out of this board every single day. I'm looking at this board. Okay, these are the things we're working on. These are the things I'm going to pull into my to-dos. Awesome, making progress. We'll communicate inside of these cards with the team and this is just project-based communication. We use Slack as well for daily communication, but this really helps us keep on track and there's just so many things that you can do. So the last thing I want to show you is how to set this up for yourself because it might just feel overwhelming and I promise it doesn't have to be. I would highly encourage you to check out the Trello Inspo page just in case you need a little bit more inspiration in terms of creating your board. But, and I'll link that in the link below, we have a blog that accompanies each of our episodes. You can check that out there. So I'm going to go ahead and just demo a quick project board for you. Like what would I do if I was starting from zero? Because I know that that's going to be something that you are going to tell me in the comments. You're going to be like, well, what if I have to start from zero? You have it all set up. How does that work? So this is how it works, right? We have a project board and it's completely blank. The first thing I would do is, okay, what are the minimal lists that I will need, right? So for me, as if I'm creating this either for my team or solo, I know that I have a strategic way of working on projects. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set up, okay, what we're working on right now, future projects, on pause projects, and then started working on these. Like, and again, you know, verbiage is just, I'm just kind of running with it. You could set it up however you want, whatever speaks to you. And I would literally just brainstorm, right? What are the things that we're going to work on right now? What are the things that we're going to work on in the future? Maybe do a quick brain dump in this list right here and you can just add anything that comes to mind. Maybe that looks like growing our email list to 1,000 subs. It could also be revamping our entire website. It could be designing some new branding, brand assets, and we could do a hire a new VM, right? So these are just ways that you could just brain dump and just think about what exactly you want to achieve. And then as you're creating your list, put it in order of priority, right? You can use labels and you can use just the sequential order to add these projects in a sequence that makes sense for you. So maybe hiring a VA is more important. Maybe you know that you want to grow your email list and that's more important than designing new assets or you know that you need new assets before you can tackle the website redesign. All of those things are important. And then, you know, sit down and really map out your strategy. Okay, so I know that this month, this is a priority. So this is what I'm going to work on first and I'm also going to work on this. Try to make it as specific as possible in terms of setting up projects and goals. I'm just kind of riffing here, but just note on that. And then kind of moving into, right? So these are the things that I'm going to work on. Don't overwhelm yourself, especially if you don't have a team. There's no need to be working on 14 projects at the same time. I would really top this out at three, you know, slow and steady growth is important so that you stay consistent and don't overwhelm yourself. So that's how I would do it. And then I would go into each project and outline it, right? So, okay, this is what I want to accomplish in this description. I would add any documentation, any links that would be helpful. Maybe, you know, what the first steps would be you can outline here on the checklist. So it could be to-do's, you know, maybe first step for you to hire a new VA is maybe go through some hiring training. Hiring course training and then maybe add the link right there so that it's easy for you to access. Maybe the next thing you need to do is outline your job description and then you need to post a job listing and then maybe you need to narrow it down on applicants. So just a couple ideas as to how you would break down a project. You could do it even more advanced, right? Like from here, you can actually phase it out. So you could do to-do's in phase one and then have a different checklist for phase two. Phase two, boom, and then phase three and you can outline it that way, right? Use the tools that you have available inside of each card to make it easier for you. A question that I get asked all the time is what do you use for covers? Well, Trello now has these great covers that you can add as colors and you could set it up that way or they also have here the ability of adding photo covers. I don't know if this is only included in Trello Gold. It might just be included in Trello Gold. That's what I have. But if you don't have this available for free, don't sweat it. Like that's totally okay. You don't need a cover for each card, but this is just an example. And whenever I'm doing my cards here, you know, my covers, I should say, for my cards, I can easily go in and search for photos and say, okay, so if this is a card about hiring just for visual and aesthetics because I'm extra like that. I like having something that's related to that, but you don't have to. It's just a question I get often. So I decided I would touch on it. And so there you go, right? Like very simple project board, something that you can set up. You can, of course, add deadlines to these projects. Super important. Something that makes sense to you. So you also get notifications on that. And one thing that you can do as you're adding deadlines to each project, for example, is to check out the calendar view, right? Click on the calendar view and at a glance, you can see everything that is due this month. So we have here hire a new VA August 31st and then design some new brand assets is due on the 20th. And that way you can see like all your projects from a calendar perspective. So I hope that this is making sense. I hope that you have clarity. Of course, we have so much more for you. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about what's coming next. Hey, great job. You know how to handle and manage every single project in your business or in your organization inside of a project management tool that will allow you to stay on top of every little task and make sure that you're moving closer towards your goals. But now it's time to level up. I want to show you what you could do with power-ups and that's exactly what I'm going to go through in the next episode. So it's going to be linked here somewhere on the screen. Definitely check it out. I'll see you there. I promise it won't disappoint. You're going to learn how to do advanced things like repeat tasks and set up Trello automations that will save you a ton of time. And hey, don't forget to like and subscribe to this episode and let me know in the comment section below what would you like to learn next around Trello. We're creating this entire series for you and we want to hear your feedback. So I'll see you there. Un beso. Bye for now. If you're looking to maximize your productivity, but you have no idea where to start with a project management tool, Trello is about to be your best friend. And in this tutorial, I'm going to walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a system to manage and prioritize your to-do list.