Organising my brain: I might be addicted to Trello

Recently I realised how much extra energy I need to keep on top of things, whether its ADHD or just brain fog cause by the ME, remembering things is my nemesis. So looking into how I can get organised led me to Trello and Kanban boards. This is what they look like:

I found Trello really easy to use and it didn't take long until my Trello boards looked like this:

And that's just my personal ones!!! So here is a quick guided tour of my boards.

First up is Bills and it does what it says on the tin. Literally a list of bills, how much they are and how they are paid:

This helps with my budgeting and reminding what I need to pay.

In a similar vein is Reminders:

This is a list of the things I'm likely to forget to do and when things are up for renewal. I want a list of the renewal dates for things so I can review if I want to cancel it instead of it auto renewing and then me realising I really didn't want it for another year (which is what usually happens).

Next up Books:

I have a huge to read pile (I haven't had time to add everything here yet) but I can never decide what to read next. Hopefully being able to see them in one place will help. I also hope to start writing some mini reviews of the books I read.

On a similar theme TV and Films:

When I sit down to watch TV the last thing I need is to spend ages trying to decide what to watch. Or I know what I want to watch but cant remember what it was on. Having this list makes it easier to decide. 

Next up Cleaning:

One of the joys of ME is just not having the energy to do things. The days when I used to just blitz the whole house in one day every month are long gone. So I'm trying to get into a cleaning rota where at least one room gets cleaned every week and every room gets a deep clean every 6 months. The problem is I can't always do a whole room in one go so this is what those cards look like:

Breaking it down into smaller jobs means I can either do it all in one day or I can pick up what I'm able to do that day and keep track of what I did so I don't have to spend 15 minutes each day trying to remember what I needed to do next. 

Next up DIY:

I love doing DIY but this is something I don't often have the energy to do. This board is a list of small jobs around the house so I can pick one to do when I have the energy instead of using that energy trying to remember what needs doing.

Next Food:

Which works with Meal Planner:

I tend to get stuck in a rut of what to eat. It gets to tea time and I'm too exhausted to plan beyond just grabbing whatever is easiest. So I'm making a list of meals that I like and are fairly easy to prepare and using them to actually plan my meals for the week. I also want to add in some recipes I want to try so that I can try to be slightly more creative with what I eat. Hopefully I can also get back into some batch cooking so I can get away from having to buy loads of ready meals. The meal cards look like this:

So I can check I have everything I need in and use it to make a shopping list for the week.

Next another two boards that work together Guitar Resources:

This is a board for me to store links and exercises that I can use to make my Practice Schedule:

Again this saves time and energy sat trying to work out what to practice. So I can use that energy on actually playing instead.  

Next up Health:

Another joy of chronic illness. I'm constantly being asked about what medications I'm on and what treatments I've had so this is a place for me to store those so I can look it up easily.

On to Journal:

I've been keeping a hand written journal for a while now but this is a way to just a quicker way to track some habits. The cards are still under development but they look like this:

So a combined to do list, food diary and I use the description box to write a short journal entry at the end of each day. 

Next Name Change:

As you can imagine the paperwork involved in changing your name is incredible. This was actually the first board as I needed a way to keep track of what I had done and then I realised what else I could use this for.

Lastly the two most important ones. Spending:

When I'm not well I tend to over eat and over spend so I need to get my budget under control. When I spend any money I add it to this. I can then use these lists to put together a budget and work out where I'm over spending.

And lastly To Do:

This is the board I spend most time on. It has my daily Journal entries, a to do list of things I don't do regularly and my shopping list. This one is saved to the home screen on my phone so I can easily dip into it.