Road to Actually Launching #2: Trello for Productivity and Mental Momentum

Now, there's close to no chance that very many Indie Hackers don't know about Trello at this point.

I use it religiously, but also not enough. It's a great solution for productivity, staying organized, breaking down large projects into manageable chunks and even working with a large team. It has integrations for a lot of other SaaS platforms (ones that I absolutely don't use enough) and can be a huge help in project management and productivity.

It can also be a huge factor in overcoming initial inertia and building what I call "mental momentum" to start and push into the initial stages of a project.

A project at rest tend to stay at rest, until acted upon by a motivated and organized mind.

For me, mental momentum is all about conquering the first stages of starting a project. It's about pushing through that initial conservative inertia that seems almost hellbent on keeping your projects from ever getting started. It's about pushing through the doubt, laziness and initial logistical challenges of getting your project's first couple inches of lift.

Trello isn't going to write your code for you. It's not GitHub Copilot. It doesn't have any fancy AI that organizes your project "the way it should be" and it's not a perfect tool. I will, however, tell you how I like to use it and how I'm using it now to get my project started.

Discussion:
What are some of your favorite cheap/free/freemium apps and sites for productivity and product management? What is your typical workflow like?

Practical Kanban'ing

Atlassian has a pretty good video on Kanban, and I recommend watching that because it's almost definitely going to be more clear than my explanation, but for the click-lazy or those that want my view on it, here's how I use Trello for what are called Kanban boards.

Kanban is an Agile-inspired methodology of product management built upon flows. You typically have an item backlog, a TODO list, a Doing list, some processing steps and a DONE/SHIPPED list. All of these are typically depicted by vertical columns containing one or more "cards" that we will get to later. The cards will work through the "flow" from left to right, from the TODO list or backlog to the Doing list to the DONE/SHIPPED list.

• The backlog - This is where I typically store feature ideas and requests and bug fixes that aren't super time-sensitive. They're things that need to eventually make it into the flow, but they aren't time-sensitive or important enough to be put in immediately.

• The TODO list - This is where time-sensitive, important items go. I typically update the TODO list on a weekly basis and try to have it cleared within the same timeframe, but sometimes, especially with bigger cards, that doesn't happen.

• The Doing list - This is where I store the cards that I'm actively working on. It allows me to immediately hone in on what I've got on my plate for the day instead of searching through the TODO list to find what I'm looking for.

• Processing lists - I might have a flow that requires testing, whether E2E testing, unit testing or manual testing, or maybe I'm working on a blog or a video that requires editing. If that's the case, I'll have a column for that processing step, wherein a card is "in the testing phase" which is still, technically, "TODO."

• The DONE list - My favorite list, this is where I get to celebrate all the things I've achieved. I like keeping the cards here, practically so that I can reference information on those cards like links, descriptions, notes, etc., but also so that I can scroll to the right and feel proud of what I've got done.

So, what goes in these lists? These lists are all populated by "cards" that hold a lot of different information and make up a lot of the power behind Trello Kanbans. For development projects, a card is typically a feature, API endpoint, piece of a front-end web page, or a bug request, but it can also be tasks that are non-technical, like "send an email to that lead" or "make a blog post announcing the new feature XYZ." These cards contain a wealth of information, including a due date that will populate the calendar on Trello, a checklist that I use to break down a small feature into even smaller sub-tasks (each of which can have their own due date) and notes. You can color-code cards, say to represent cards pertaining to back-end, front-end and marketing tasks, as well.

Power-ups are an area I plan to research a lot more in the future. They're basically extensions that add a ton of functionality and integrations to Trello boards.

Alright cool, Mitch, but you promised to write about actual progress, not just fawning over Trello

Yes, grumpy internet reader, you're right.

So, I've filled out a couple of initial tasks on Trello. This includes provisioning infrastructure, building out tests and creating a couple of API endpoints that will functionally make a micro-MVP. This micro-MVP is basically an initial feature that adds an incredibly trivial proof-of-concept and proof-of-value to the project. It's also a necessary step to the larger project.

I know, I know, you're tired of hearing about the vague "project." I'm tired of writing it instead of getting to shout about my new idea from the rooftops like I want to. Basically, my reasoning is this: I don't want to make promises without knowing exactly what I'm promising. I had the whole idea for HoneyHunting already parsed out before I wrote anything about it, and that still failed, so I'd rather spend some time getting my ducks in a row first and then tell you all about it.

That means that a pretty significant part of the initial lift is going to involve planning and documentation. Now, I'm an over-planner... it's a huge fault of mine. But, I at least want to have an idea of what the MVP is going to look like before I dive into code and announce what I'm doing. So I'm going to make a (soft) commitment of having that MVP figured out by the end of the week... which is exciting!

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