How Amy Bauer of Front Yard Veggies uses Trello to make moves: big and small

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Hey Trello users,

Today we have a special treat: Gardener, mom, and content creator @Amy Bauer shares her career path from marketing guru and fitness entrepreneurship into project management around the home, with her family, and for content creation!

I'm excited for her to share with you the wonderful ways she uses Trello for everything, from content for her blog, Front Yard Veggies, to planning home and garden tasks, to organizing cross-country move! I hope you're empowered and inspired as I am to use Trello for anything you have in mind.

Hi, Amy! Tell us about yourself.

I’m a Massachusetts-born gal who, post-attending college in Maine, has bounced around the country—Boston to San Francisco to Brooklyn to Santa Monica to Central Massachusetts, near where I grew up. For work, I’ve had marketing experience in a variety of industries—mostly start-up's—ranging from mobile games and entertainment apps to consumer-packaged goods and magazine publishing.

When we moved to Los Angeles, I left the traditional 9-5 and struck out on my own, building a private concierge fitness business servicing 20+ clients in Los Angeles area, coaching CrossFit, and making a total career 180.

Then, in May of 2020, my husband and I welcomed our first child, our daughter, Reese, into the world, and I’m currently loving being a stay-at-home mom to her while creating food and garden content in my spare time on my blog, Front Yard Veggies, and Instagram at @frontyardveggies.

I promise you, this is no exaggeration, sometimes I think I would get nothing done without Trello... I pretty much recommend Trello to everyone I know, and I sing its praises from the rooftops. It makes life so. much. easier.

How did you hear about Trello, and what do you love most about it?

When I was working at a small tech start-up in Brooklyn in 2014, I was one of four employees, and the CEO had this whole thing about not wanting any paper in the office whatsoever, and hating email. So literally, the entire company was run on Trello! This was before every company was using Slack, and it was my first introduction to Trello.

I was immediately hooked and began using it for my personal life, as well. I loved how it simplified project management for work but could also work for simple grocery lists, a catch-all for ideas and brainstorming, and to keep tabs on everything without relying on my short- and long-term memory.

You’ve used Trello for gardening, your wedding, a cross-country move, your family, and more! Can you tell us more about these experiences and how Trello helped?

While planning our wedding in 2014, I was attempting to get my husband interested in the nitty-gritty details to no avail. That is until I appealed to his logical, software engineering brain and suggested we use Trello to organize details.

He was excited about the project management aspect of that, and once I started assigning him tasks, he was checking them off left and right! It made wedding planning an absolute breeze.

Since then, we’ve always had a shared family board and created separate boards for larger life projects that require more specifics—namely, two cross-country moves (NY—>CA in 2016 and then CA—>MA in 2020), one of which happened mid-pandemic and with a 2-month-old baby. To say it was a stressful, high-stakes move is putting it lightly! But again, we managed to, sort of, keep our sanity thanks to using Trello.

Now, I have a few boards that I use day-to-day: 

• Family Admin—where we put things like making vet appointments, a big list for when to clean certain parts of the house, fun family activity ideas, gift ideas, etc. 
• Front Yard Veggies—where I jot down content ideas, topics, to-dos for brand partnerships, website edits I need to make, resources I refer back to, etc. 
• This Old House—we live in a 100-year-old colonial home and while it’s in fantastic condition, it’s still old! And on 1.5 acres, so there’s always something to do. We keep columns for indoor and outdoor tasks, and big picture project dreaming. 
• Personal—I mostly use this for a digital bullet journal where I can brain dump, and then migrate tasks weekly into my physical bullet journal, because I love keeping it with me during the day. I’ve always kept a physical notebook despite relying heavily on Trello to be my second brain! I also keep tabs here on random items I want to buy, arts and crafts projects to try, specific garden tasks, and honestly anything else that I don’t want to forget. It’s a bit of a mess, but an organized mess. 

Can you tell us how you decided to set up one of your favorite boards and why?

My favorite board right now is This Old House, because it’s really allowed my husband and me to get on the same page with little tasks that build up around the house without me having to nag about things like spackling holes in walls, snaking a drain, cleaning the basement, etc.

As we think of things for inside or outside the house, we add them to the shared board and then jokingly have “nap goals” where we each just tackle a few items.

It has made divvying up household chores, cleaning, yardwork, and more so much more painless and equitable—we know what needs to get done and just do it!

Do you have any favorite power-up’s?

For moving and the wedding, we used assigned labels, but right now we both love the simplicity of columns and checklists in individual cards. I sometimes get fancy with colored labels for holiday gift planning, but the easier the better in my opinion. 

But now that I’m poking around the app, I think I need to start using the Calendar power-up for household maintenance and cleaning and garden tasks. :)

How has Trello helped you be more productive or helped you achieve your goals?

I promise you, this is no exaggeration, sometimes I think I would get nothing done without Trello. Or I would, but there would be more forgetting, nagging, freak-outs, and much more stress. I pretty much recommend Trello to everyone I know, and I sing its praises from the rooftops. It makes life so. much. easier.

It’s impossible to keep track of everything going on in our busy lives, and having a little digital repository for everything is priceless. I joke that I feel like Dumbledore pulling memories out with his wand and plopping them in the Pensieve. 🪄

What’s your top tip for someone new to Trello?

Don’t overcomplicate it, and just start. You can always adjust your boards and change your methods as you go. You’ll figure out the use that works best for you—it can be as simple or as advanced as you’d like!

If you had a magic wish for a new Trello feature to make it even more beloved, what would it be?

I think there’s a way to get Trello to work with Siri/Shortcuts, but I can’t seem to figure it out. Sometimes between thinking of something and opening the app, I forget what I needed to write down!

(Editor's note: we're seeing Hands free Trello card creation with Siri Shortcuts in our Trello Community!)

What are some routines that you’ve enjoyed or started this past year?

I have always loved exercise, but with a toddler at home and the whole pandemic thing, we decided to get a Peloton and it has been life-changing. A 30-60 minute workout every day gives me the energy and clarity I need to parent a spirited toddler all day!

What’s something that’s inspiring you right now?

Seeing other women create brands and businesses of their own while being stay-at-home moms. I compare where I am to where folks without kids, or with full-time childcare are, and I need to stop doing that—this is the season of life that I’m in, so I’m trying to lean in, enjoy it, all while taking a bit of time to build something of my own. It’s hard but seeing others do it is very inspiring. 

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Thanks so much, Amy! ✨ Leave her some love and your questions in the comments 👇🏼

Want to connect with Amy further? DM her on Instagram, check out her blog, sign up for her weekly newsletter, or shoot her an email at amy [at] frontyardveggies.com. She loves to chat with folks!

[Gioele Lai]

Great idea!

[Khalid]

I also, have consistently cherished working out, however, with a baby at home and the entire thing, we chose to get a Peloton, and it has been groundbreaking. A 30-minute exercise routine consistently gives me the energy and clarity I want to parent a lively little child day in and day out! Check out my fitness journey with InstaPro and join me in this empowering experience!"