Using Trello to Fight the Patriarchy

[#1]

You knew I'd find a way, didn't you? 

I was trying to think of something I could make with Trello this week, and honestly the thought of just coming up with a way to be more "productive" felt daunting as the world is falling apart around us. So instead, I decided to use Trello to help me when I'm feeling overwhelmed and discouraged with things. 

I created a board with two lists, one for self care, and one for "productive" things to do with my frustration that can effect change - like contact senators, donate to causes, and educate myself. 

Each card in the list is a specific activity, and the cards in the productive list have links attached to them that go to specific places to take that action (like a donation page, or a senator's contact form).

This was already feeling cool, but then I used PixieBrix (browser extension that lets you automate all sorts of things and integrates very nicely with Trello) to automate a few things and randomly pick a card from each list, tell me to do them, and then open the link in the attachments on the "productive" card. This all happens just by me clicking a keyboard shortcut and selecting an action called "It's Gonna Be Okay". 

It's a bit hairy to type out all the steps - requires a little bit of configuration, but you can follow along with me and set up in probably less than 15 minutes if you'd like! Here's a video showing how I did it. 

Also, will happily help anyone if you want to build this and you're getting stuck. Just post in the comments or on the video and I'll be on the lookout and respond as soon as I can with helpful instructions!

[Jenny]

@Brittany Joiner —you are INSPIRING. Thank you for sharing this. I work at Trello, so I tend to get pretty excited whenever I see an interesting application of it. But when I see a use-case like THIS, I get teary-eyed. <3

[Brittany Joiner]

@Jenny that makes me so happy to hear!! i also love when i find ways to use tools that help me do things that are not just "producing value" ya know haha. thanks for chiming in here and I'll do my best to keep inspiring and coming up with all sorts of ideas!!

[Jimmy Seddon]

@Brittany Joiner This is VERY inspiring! In fact so much so, it hurt my brain a little.  Thank you for sharing this!  I can see so many cool ways to apply this and I'm glad you found such a cool way to be that guiding light!

[Jen McVicker]

This is brilliant! I've been using Zapier, tray.io and Workato for years for automation, but had never heard of PixieBrix before. Thanks for the info and quick walk-through!

[Brittany Joiner]

@Jimmy Seddon thanks! and yes it was a bit complicated and got a little hairy there with some of that implementation 😂 thanks for sticking through the explanations!

[Brittany Joiner]

@Jen McVicker absolutely!! im a huge zapier fan and ive found some cool stuff with Zapier, PB, and Trello. (I figured out how to schedule comments in Trello with a combo of those three and was quite proud of that 😂) I also built an impulse buy calculator with PixieBrix, so I find all sorts of fun things to do with it, 

[Michael Mirandi]

Thanks for sharing @Brittany Joiner! I zoomed in on your Quick Bar list to see what other actions you created in addition to "It's Gonna Be Okay." So many cool ideas: "Show Trello Tasks," "Read Later," "Convert to Local Time," "Save Idea," and more!

[Brittany Joiner]

@Michael Mirandi oh yes - pretty much all of those (except converting local time) are sending things to specific places in Trello 😊 So nice to do with just a click. I have extensions that configure the board and what to grab from a URL to create a card, and it does it with a click. 

- Show Trello tasks (opens a sidebar panel with my cards due for the day)

- Read Later (grabs title and URL and creates a card in a specific list in my main trello board for content I want to read later.. with literally a click)

- Convert to Local Time (not Trello related, but does exactly what it sounds like)

- Save Idea (opens a prompt where i can select which list i want to create a new card in on my ideas board)

[Shannon Fabert]

I love this use case! I introduced Trello to my county party as a way for us to organize.  It's slow coming because it's new technology for them but we will get there.