How I organise my freelance business with Trello

As a freelancer and web designer who offers Webflow CMSwebsite design and support, I need to organise my projects and to do listswell. While others use fully fledged project management tools such as Asana,Basecamp or Monday.com, I am (still) pretty happy with Trello. Trello hasbecome quite poplar under designers and creatives as an efficient tool toorganise your workload and (upcoming) projects. At this point in time I use thebasic version of Trello that is completely free to use. It should also be saidthat I don’t have joint boards with clients but use Trello solely to organisemy own projects and workload. In this blog post I show you how I use Trello toorganise my freelance web design business. Let’s go!

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Boards

Trello works with “Boards” which in turn have “cards” onthem that can be filled with individual tasks or projects. At the moment I haveonly 5 different boards that are colour coded so I can tell them apart easily.My boards in details:

-         Projects & Tasks

-         Meetings & Networking

-         Webflow Site

-         Personal

-         RWWA

Projects & Tasks

As the name says, here on this board I organise any upcomingor current projects and tasks. There’s a Trello card for “Tasks”, showing allthe tasks that have to be done now or asap. These tasks could be “XXX WebsiteMaintenance” or “Reply to email XXX”. Under each task I have either a checklistoutlining all the individual tasks e.g. for website maintenance this could be“Change XXX on landing page” or “Implement XXX on site”. The good thing aboutTrello check lists is that you can tick off an item as soon as it is done. Veryhandy! I might also attach due dates or add brief comments whenever newinformation comes available. As soon as a task is completed I move it to the“Done recently” card on the same board. The Projects & Tasks board also hasa “Projects Now” card on which I put projects that I’ve got on the go at themoment. These often mirror the “tasks” card but sometimes there are additionalprojects on there that I am working on (such as ongoing Webflow sitemaintenance) but that currently don’t need any tasks done. The last remainingcard is called “Waiting for feedback” and here I move tasks that I havecompleted and I am waiting for feedback from the client.

Meetings & Networking

This board is divided into the following cards: ” To do”,“Meetings scheduled”, “Waiting for response” and “Completed”. “Meetingsscheduled” allows me to remember which meetings (either in person or online) Ihave organised. “To do” shows me who I have to follow up with, arrange ameeting with etc., while “Waiting for response” lets me see who I still have tohear back from. A “Completed” card is where I move all the completed (orobsolete) meetings and follow-ups to make space for new ones. Too easy!

Webflow Site

This board is all about my own portfolio website and it isbasically just a very simple to do list with a card for “To do” and “Done”. OftentimesI add comments or write in the description if I have new ideas regarding aparticular feature or if I have discovered a new resource that might help mewith implementation. Here I note all the features I still have to implement onmy own Webflow site. And the list always grows and grows! At the top of my listat the time of writing is a Disqus comment feature for this blog, as well asimplementing my client testimonials.

Personal

As the name says, this board basically revolves my ownpersonal life and is again a very simple to do list. It’s usually filled withthe usual day-to-day stuff such as “Pay XXX insurance” (with due date) or“Research XXX service”. Again, a “Completed” card allows me to store all theitems I have already ticked off my list!

How my Trello boards are organised is not set in stone andoftentimes I come up with new and better ways of doing things. I have certainlyonly scratched the surface of what Trello can do and what value Trello canprovide, but I am planning to further look into this (“hello, Power-Ups, I’mlooking at you!”).

I hope this article has given you a bit of aninsight into how I as a Webflow website designer use Trello for my day-to-daywork. You can learn more and sign up for a free account at www.trello.com