Productivity describes various measures of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a crucial factor in the production performance of firms. Productivity growth can also help businesses to be more profitable. (Source: Wikipedia)

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Why use Trello?

Trello lets you work more collaboratively and get more done. (Source: Trello.com)

Delivering more than is expected is often thought of as too good to be true. Yet, as a business professional, organising tasks and activities properly can make or break your rate of efficiency.

Let's get to it.

With the following steps, you can set up an account on Trello.com, and be even more productive each day.

1. Sign up on the website. It's free.
2. Click on Create new board to start off organizing tasks and plans.
3. Pick a board setting.
4. Select a background from the options available.
5. Click on Create Board.

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Setting up a Board

In the menu section, click on About This Board to add a description to your board.

In the Description section, write something that explains your board to other teammates - personal or professional. + ... and
then click Save.

Organizing Information

Click on Add a list in the upper left-hand corner of the board webpage.

Let us call our first list, One, and click on the Add List button to save it.

We will do the same thing for lists named Two through Five.

Some Features

So far we have been discussing Trello in a purely abstract way.

Let us tie down parts of its functionality to a project.

Let us say, we are working on a blog article, and need to arrange our activities and tasks. We plan on writing a blog article about project management.

First, let us break down what we need to do, by adding cards to the newly created board.

A card is a gateway to a larger set of planning options.

Card Add-ons

Button	Explanation
Description	Helps card members know what a card is about
Members	Lets us invite other people to participate in a card's task or activities
Labels	This can be done with colours to help board members know what a card does by sight
Checklist	This lets us set you tasks that can be verified as directly completed
Due Date	Sets a time for a card's task to be achieved. It can be set to time, date and an alert period
Attachment	Can have links attached to a card, and other content from a diverse group of sources
Cover	With this we can set an image that gives a visual clue to a card

Card Actions

Button	Explanation
Move	Lets us move a card in three ways (to other Boards, Lists and a different position in a List)
Copy	With this us can replicate a card, do the things in the Move feature and edit a card's title
Watch	This lets us observe changes in a card we are a member of
Archive	This takes a card off a list, and into the Archived Items section of a board

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Implementing Card Add-ons

Here we have updated our board with labelled cards. This serves to show us what tasks each card addresses at a glance.

# Labels

* GREEN: Research
* YELLOW: Data collection
* BLUE: Writing activity
* PURPLE: Interviews

To give our board a more realistic feel, we will use the following features:

• Attachment
• Checklist
• Cover
• Due Date

Breakdown of changes

In the first card in link One, a link was added as an attachment to help direct research.

We added a checklist to the second card in list Two to track task stages.

Also, the Due Date functionality was added to card three in the same list. This was done to give an indication of when the task should be completed.

Cover photos were added to several cards to give a visual representation of the tasks to be completed.

Comment and Watch features were added to a card to help direct us on how to approach the task.

We have done a lot now, haven't we...

Notice anything different? We archived list Five.

• 
• 

This is because we realized that the cards on the list, can work just as well as a Checklist in a card.

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Final Board

Endnotes

So far using Trello has helped us organize and map out our different blog article tasks. We have visual cues and detailed tips that make our lives easier. I will leave the choice of whether or not to be more productive, up to you.

Disclaimer: Neither Trello nor its associates sponsored this article in any way, shape or form. This was created to help the general public achieve more, with their planned activities.

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Here is a Link to Demo Board, as used in this review. Check out this slide deck too.

Check out Getting Started With Trello for more tips and information.