Trello is an interesting technological resource. It’s something I’ve been using since I first investigated it at the beginning of the semester. Given the overwhelming amount of work we’re given throughout our first semester in the Secondary PDP Program, I needed something other than my iCloud calendar to help me manage my due dates.  Time management is a huge part of being a professional in any field, but this is especially true for education.

Being responsible for the learning of an average of 25+ students per class—designing units and lessons, creating and finding resources to facilitate their learning, grading—can mean not having any spare time for yourself, if you aren’t managing your time well. To get a good idea of what is required, what is manageable, and what is feasible for this semester, I entered all of our assignments into a Trello board.

Each card contains a checklist for the steps and expectations of the assignments. As you can see, I’m already working on several projects that are not due until nearly the end of the semester. By using my free time and every ounce of spare energy I can find, I’ve been able to ensure I won’t be slammed come November.

As an experiment for another aspect of my professional development, I started a Trello board for a new passion project of mine. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a writer. I’ve been working on a novel (…like seriously working) for about four years now. With the stress of school piling on, and with the feedback of my lovely beta readers (and my dream agent!! Ahhh!!) I have decided to put aside my original concept, separate a piece of it and work on it as a standalone novel. Trello helped me organize my initial ideas around character and plot structure, as well as the big ideas of where I want the story to start and how I’d like it to end.

In short, Trello is pretty cool. You should try it for something other than tech class. You might be surprised at how useful it is!