For as long as I can remember I have been a massive dreamer. That’s awesome, right? Downside is, I am a dreamer who makes very few of those dreams come true. A lot of it comes down to being a “Campaigner”. One of my key characteristics as a campaigner is loooooooads of ideas (too many) and little in terms of composure and conviction... and then I just get BORED.
This means that when it comes to MOVING FORWARD, I seem to go “nowhere... fast!”
Maybe for you this rings a bell? Lots to do and achieve but somehow, you’re not getting it done?
Want to do something about that?
Well you can!
In this article I will share one of the key aspects of my life I really wanted to excel at and take you through (the truncated version of) my journey to success.
By the end of it you will go off on your own journey of Powering On!
Way back in Sept 2019 I got a royal invitation by Bridget to become an Atlassian Author: dream come true and with it... a million ideas; eek!!
I really love sharing knowledge as well as writing, so this was a perfect opportunity for me.
I really wanted to do my absolute best, but I needed to overcome bad habits. After many many months, I’d only written 2 or 3 articles only. Pretty poor.
Therefore, I turned to my #TrustyTrello, set up a board titled “Atlassian Author” and got cracking.
To keep the story as short as possible but still inspirational, here’s what I did to get to where I am today as an Atlassian Author step by step; taking my Trello board from blank canvas to a work of art, and thus (more importantly!) achieving my dream.
Below my board as I started. On day one, it was literally just a simple Kanban with all my ideas dumped on it:
- BOARD: make a Trello Board
- LISTS: build a load of lists
- BRAINDUMP: dump all of my ideas (each one a Card) on there, ASAP!
- LESS IS MORE: eventually clean up the Lists like crazy (I suddenly had so many, it was all over the place)
- CLEAN: eventually archive Cards of old (especially uninteresting) ideas. Keep it clean; remove the clutter!
- WIP LIMIT: Stop procrastinating! Set a WIP on In Progress and To-Do (more on that HERE!!)
- PROGRESS: monitor progress for self-gratification and reward (especially the Awesome Author badge!)
- CHECKLISTS: ß this! Use checklists! OMGoodness they’re awesome.
- LABELS: Idea Formed, In Progress, Ready4Review, Done, Published!
- GLAMOUR COVER: put in an awesome and relevant cover to give each card its identity!
- TITLES: learn how to write epic and engaging titles, then ensure this is the title of each Card!
- LIKE, WHEN?? Used due date function and set realistic, achievable goals for publishing
- DRAFTS: Word, Confluence or whatever. Draft it first somewhere else (keeping a draft on Community is not ideal). Then link it to the card. Only paste into Community for final Editing and publishing!
- GO WITH THE FLOW: Do whatever you feel like, whenever, especially if the inspiration hits. (Case in point: I have a full back-log right now but the idea for this piece came out of the blue, so I just went with it and... ta dah!)
- LEARNING: set a Lessons Learnt card and keep it up2date
- FORMAT: learn Trello formatting to make Cards super-duper epic!
- PUPS: make use of PUps. For me Butler and Calendar have been the most influential on this Board!
- UP2DATE: keep the Board up2date. At a minimum spend 30min per week reviewing and cleaning it up. Keeps those ideas in focus!
- PUBLISHED: the feeling of moving each card to the “published” label/list is just AMAZABALLZ. Don’t YOU feel amazing when that happens?
Below is what my board looks like now after a period of hard grafting. I’m now busting out 1 standard published article per month. It has certainly helped me MOVE FORWARD!
Maybe this rang a bell for you, maybe not... but either way all of us have lots we want to do and achieve and so now it is time to go out there and get things DONE!
But before you do, tell The Community and your experience of MOVING FORWARD!
How are you achieving that? Are you using Trello? If yes, how?
Is it personal or professional? And if professional, are you connecting Trello to other Atlassian products?
Looking forward to hearing what you all have to share!
Andy - PTC Redundant
Former RocktAR Project Manager (now redundant)
PTC
Rotterdam
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