Non-work uses for Trello - House Vision Board

[#1]

Traditional Vision Boards

‘Vision/Inspiration/Dream/Mood Boards’ are the new in thing, everywhere you look people are publishing inspiration boards for makeup, vision boards for kitchen remodelling, if you can think of it, there’s an [insert latest buzz word here] board for it. 

If you Google ‘vision board’ you get 2.6m results, everything from making a vision board as a beginner, to manifesting your destiny by having one that accurately reflects the person you want to be. That’s the whole premise of Pinterest, getting pictures and ideas from all over the internet and pinning them to a board so that you can see them all laid out in a clear succinct space. Please understand that I’m not knocking them, a lot of people get a lot of use and value out of them, and in some cases, swear by them, but although I have a Pinterest account, I’ve never really spent that much time on it. I do check it when it comes up in a Google search, but that’s about it.

As many of you know, I live in my Trello, so trying to remember to check Pinterest while I spent the majority of my life in another programme, wasn’t really happening (especially when Trello suits my needs better). As I said in my previous article on Creating card covers in Google Slides, I don’t have a creative bone in my body, Pinterest just doesn’t gel with me. I’ve created boards on Pinterest, I’ve added things, but it’s just not my bag! Even though I’ve set up my Trello board to act the same way as a Pinterest board, I just can’t use Pinterest to save my life! 

Using Trello as a Vision Board

If you’re anything like me, your Amazon Basket and Saved Items are a mess! Not only that, but Amazon isn’t the only place that I buy things from (I’m looking at you Ikea!), and keeping track of where I like things, and how much they are and what room they’re going to go in, is a total nightmare! Not to mention that having things in baskets all over the internet doesn’t help me to be able to see if they actually MATCH with the other things that I have my eye on! 

I’ve also found that I add things to my Amazon basket to keep an eye on them, not necessarily to buy them right now, it’s almost like a holding area, and more often than not, I’ll go back through them and have absolutely no idea why I put them in there! 

Ikea’s system is quite good because you can have distinct baskets for different rooms and different events, any way you want to split your ideas up really. Just like you can have different ‘wishlists’ on Amazon, but they’re still all over the place, and you can’t have a single basket for the whole of the internet - I needed another plan -  enter Trello (of course!). 

Because I use Trello for everything in my life (I’m a little bit addicted, but I’m ok with that!), it made sense that I use a board to keep track of things that I liked. Trello is amazing for so much, so I thought that I would see if I could make my own version of a vision board, but set up my way, in a platform that I love, to collect all these things from all over the internet into one place so that I can see the room by room plans in one place.

Trello allows me to keep prices and see things in a more visual way with the information that I need for making good decisions, as well as having each room or space as a list and being able to see the overall look of the house.

Using Trello on Google Chrome

I exclusively use Google Chrome and have the Trello Chrome Extension because it’s an amazing way to get anything from the internet into Trello in the board and list that you want it to be in, it’s effortless! 

That way, anything that I see on any website that either I like but would like to find it cheaper, or anything that I fall in love with, I can add to the House Vision Board in the right room, no matter where I saw it. You can even add pictures of rooms you like to give you inspiration, rather than individual products that you come across! If you use Trello on Chrome, I highly recommend that you use this official Chrome Extension.

The only thing that I’ve found is that sometimes the picture of the item isn’t imported when the page is added to Trello which is a bit of a pain, because the whole point is to see everything that I want to buy, but that can be ‘got around’ most of the time.

To use it, click on the Chrome extension, pick the board and list you want the item to be added to, tick the ‘Attach’ box, then click ‘add’:

Then hop over to your board and it’ll magically appear!

PowerUps on my House Vision Board

When I’ve got the link in my board, I use the Custom Field Power-Up on each card, that way I can put the price of the item when I found it and the date when I bought it. Because Custom Fields are so awesome, you can use them to add almost any information you can think of!

I’ve also enabled the Calendar Power-Up so that we can track when we actually buy things. This is really useful for warranties and insurances and things like that because most products come with a 12-month manufacturers warranty and it’s good to be able to keep an eye on them!

I’ve also enabled the Google Drive PowerUp because then you can put all the receipts for your purchases in folders on Google Drive, and then attach those folders so you can always find the receipt!

I should point out that this board is very much a work in progress, it doesn’t follow the typical Kanban organisation that Trello does so well! Nothing that’s on the board has been bought yet, so there isn’t anything attached from Google Drive, and there are currently no calendar events. 

Decluttering/Organising

I am in the process of another in vogue concept at the moment - decluttering. More specifically, making better use of the space that we have (our house isn’t very big) and getting creative in our organisational strategies as well as changing colours to brighten up small spaces. 

Therefore, a board where we can keep all of our ideas, no matter random or mismatched they may be, is really helping us to be able to see the changes we want to make and the things that would look good. Having a board where we can add all the organisation items we like or might want to remember.  

Our house is on a limited budget, and although we’re looking at decluttering and organising, things need to planned for well in advance, and timescales need to be worked out. There are some things that have to be either bought before others, or some things that will only be able to work after we’ve bought something else and we need to know this at a glance. It’s also great for keeping an eye on new things that might work better or in a different way to the ones we already have on the board, or for being able to see how other people have used two or three things together and how it’s worked. 

This board really is an amazing addition to our lives and our planning for the future of our home and life. 

How the House Vision Board in Trello helps with Asperger’s 

My husband has Asperger’s and finds it very difficult to ‘see’ what I’m trying to explain; if I say that ‘this colour cushion will match with this rug’ he can’t imagine it unless he can see them right next to each other, and sometimes that isn’t enough either, he has to have them physically in front of him. 

People without Asperger’s would be able to see it in their mind’s eye and imagine, but one aspect of Asperger’s is a significant deficit in the ability to imagine, and it’s been one of the things we’ve battled to try and work around since we’ve been together. 

Being able to have an entire board specifically for the ‘look’ we’re trying to achieve throughout our house, split by lists for the different rooms, has helped both of us to be able to ‘see’ how items might work together. It’s also meant that he can put things together in a configuration that I might not have seen because I take in the overall aesthetic and he just sees individual pieces. 

I know I can’t be the only one who is using Trello in this way - share some love in the comments of how you’re using Trello in a ‘non-work’ way to customise your life!

[Kat Warner]

Fantastic article! I love your House Vision Board.

Minor FYI: It is spelt "Asperger's" as it is a person's name.

Off-topic FYI: This diagnosis is no longer being given (but of course is still valid for anyone who received it in the past) as both DSM-V and ICD have moved to Autism Spectrum Disorder including what would have been diagnosed as Asperger's. 

[Esme Crutchley]

Hi @Kat Warner thank you so much for that, apparently my spellcheck hates me! but I've edited the post now so that it's right, I thought it didn't look right, but my spellcheck assured me that it was - horrid thing!

He was clinically diagnosed with 'Adult Asperger's' a few years ago, I was surprised that was the clinical diagnosis, as I was expecting it to be ASD, but apparently not!