How to use Trello to plan out your blog content

I have been using Trello to plan out my blog content for years.

I started using it to plan out my content for my personal blog, and I’ve continued to use it for this blog too.

Before discovering Trello I had tried a variety of tools and techniques for planning out my blog content but nothing really worked for me. Trello makes it so easy to curate my ideas and keep track of my progress, and of course, it looks all neat and tidy!

If you aren’t familiar with Trello it is basically a project management system that is made up of boards, and these boards contain lists and within lists you can create cards. All will become clear as you continue reading this post!

In this post, I’ll show you how to plan out your blog content in Trello.

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1 | Sign up for Trello

In order to start using Trello, you need to create an account. So head over to the Trello website and click Sign Up.

You will then be asked to enter your name, your email address and a password for your account. Or you can sign in using your Google Account.

You will be sent a confirmation email and then you will be redirected to your first Trello board, which looks a little something like this:

Take some time to play around with Trello and get a better understanding of how the system works.

By default, this board has three lists; To Do, Doing and Done. You can add more lists and add cards to these lists. It’s such a simple system to use!

To go to your Trello homepage where you can view all of your boards, click the home icon in the top left-hand corner.

Your Trello homepage will look a little something like this:

2 | Create a board for your blog

To create a new board, click the Create new board link on your Trello homepage.

Alternatively, you can click the Boards link at the top of the screen and select Create new board from the drop-down menu.

Next, you will be prompted to give your new board a name, choose a background colour or image for that board, and select whether you want your board to be public or private. I’m going to call my board “Blog” because it’s going to contain everything I need to know about my blog.

Your new board should look a little something like this…

3 | Create a post ideas list

Now we have set up our board we can create our first list.

The first list I recommend you set up is a “Post Ideas” list where you can dump all of your ideas for blog posts, with each blog post being represented by a separate card.

To do this, click Add a list.

Then give your list a name, and click Add List when you are done.

And that’s it! You created your first list in Trello!

4 | Create a card for each blog post

Next, we are going to create a card for each of our blog posts. Within your list, click Add a card.

Now, enter the name of your blog post, and when you are done click Add Card.

Easy, right?! Now, continue to make cards for each of your blog post ideas.

5 | Create lists for each step in your blog post creation process

The next step is to set up some more lists; one for every step in your blog post creation process. The idea is that you will move your card from list to list as you work on it.

So for example, in my blog board, I have the following lists

• Post Ideas – as previously mentioned, this contains post ideas.
• In Progress – contains posts that I am in the process of writing.
• Draft – contains post that I have finished writing but that need to proofread, edited, etc.
• Scheduled – contains posts that are scheduled ready to be published.

Take some time to think about your own blog post creation process and then create lists accordingly.

6 | Assign a due date

Now you probably have a date in mind for when you want your blog post to go live, and the great thing about Trello is you can assign a due date to a card.

To do this, simply click on a card and click Due Date.

This will open a calendar, and from here you can select the due date of your blog post. You can even choose a time if you wish. When you are ready, click the green Save button.

The due date will now appear on your card like so…

As you get closer to your due date, the colour of this date will change. The day before the due date, the date will be yellow to indicate that it is due soon. If the due date has passed, the date will be red.

You can also mark your card as complete to signify that your blog post is complete. To do this, just click on the card and then click the tick box next to the date:

The date will then turn green to signify that the card is complete:

Viewing your cards on a calendar

I don’t know about you but I like to see all my blog content plotted out on a calendar. The good news is there is a Trello power-up that displays your cards on a calendar.

To activate this power-up, click Power-Ups in the menu on the right-hand side of the screen.

Then scroll down until you see the power-up called Calendar. Click Add to start using this.

Now you will see an icon on the right-hand side of the screen (next to the menu) that says Calendar. Click on this to view the Calendar.

Here you will see any cards that you have assigned due dates to. You can even move the cards around in your calendar and the due date will be automatically updated.

Another thing I really like about the calendar is that you can sync your board’s calendar to your personal calendar. To get the URL of your calendar’s feed, click the cog icon when you are viewing your calendar and then click Enable sync.

Note: You can only use one power-up per board as a free Trello member, so choose your power-up wisely. You can use up to three power-ups per board if you have Trello Gold.

7 | Create a checklist

So much more goes into creating a blog post than just writing it. You might need to proofread it, add a featured image, optimise the SEO, schedule it, promote it on social media, etc.

Another awesome feature of Trello is that you can add a checklist to each card, and I like to create checklists containing each of the tasks I need to carry out before my blog post is ready to go live.

To set up your own checklist, click on a card and then click Checklist.

Then give your checklist a name and click Add.

Now you have created your checklist, you can start adding items to it. Just type in your item and click Add.

When you complete each task you can tick it off and you will see that your progress bar for that particular card will move along.

And do you know what the best thing about checklists in Trello is? Once you have created a checklist you can easily copy it to another card. This means that you don’t have to keep writing out a new checklist for each card!

So, after you have set up your checklist, if you go to add a checklist to another card, you will see you have the option to copy items from another checklist. Just click on the dropdown and select the card that you wish to copy the checklist from.