Trello is my new best friend

Since starting my new job in March, I've become a little addicted to Trello. I haven't had much time to blog this week as I've been ill, so I thought I'd quickly summarise why I love Trello and what I use it for. 

Trello is basically a haven for list lovers and super organised people (a.k.a. me). You can set up boards for various categories, and within those boards you can set up numerous lists and cards. Cards can then be dragged and dropped into different lists when tasks get finished or priorities change. You can do lots of colour coding and add attachments, and it's completely free! 

Trello has a great mobile app as well as a user-friendly desktop version, and I'm now obsessively using it in my personal life as well as in work. 

So, what exactly do I use Trello for and why is it my new best friend? 

Work 

I'm a member of at least ten work-related Trello boards. As a communications team, we use Trello to plan our events and content, allocate tasks, organise workload, keep track of progress and keep on top of deadlines. We also use Trello to work with different areas of the business on wider campaigns and projects. It has a useful 'calendar' feature which allows you to look at the upcoming week or month in its entirety, and I honestly don't know how I'd be able to do some parts of my job without it! 

Blogging

I use Trello to jot down ideas for blog posts whenever they pop into my head. I move cards to my 'blog content in progress' list once I start drafting a post, then they satisfyingly get moved to the 'published' list when they go live on a Friday at 5pm. Trello has a handy 'comment' section where I keep a rough summary of what I want to cover in each blog post, and it's so much neater than keeping a big long note on my phone as I used to do pre-Trello. 

Holidays 

We used Trello to organise our holiday to Florida in May, and we're now using it to plan our trip to New York next week. Neil and I both have access to our 'NYC 2018' board which means any updates we make will sync across all our devices. It's a great way of keeping track of the restaurants we want to visit and to make sure we've actually got enough days to do all the exciting activities we've got planned. 

Christmas 

I used to keep my Christmas shopping list in the back of my paper diary. Not any more! Trello has been a really fantastic tool for noting down who I need to buy for, quickly jotting down gift ideas, keeping track of what I've bought and how much I've spent, then moving cards to that hallowed 'people I've finished buying for' list once I'm happy with what I've bought for each person. 

Is anyone else obsessed with Trello? Let me know if you can think of anything else I could use it for! 

5 reasons why I'll always have a paper diary

As much as I love technology and my smartphone, I could never live without my paper diary.

I buy a new diary every June as I'm still in the academic diary cycle, and it's genuinely one of the highlights of my year. As soon as I buy my new diary, I set aside an hour or so to transfer everyone's birthdays from the old diary to the new one, write down any holidays I've got planned, make a note of any upcoming Welsh rugby games and note any annual leave days I've booked. For me, that is an extremely exciting hour of organisation bliss.

So why do I love my paper diary so much?


1. I get to choose a new pretty pattern every year. I usually spend half an hour agonising over which pattern to choose, but it's totally worth it when I get to take a pretty diary like this home with me (after I've paid for it, of course).

2. Calendars on phones/computers are actually a bit too complicated and advanced in some ways when you want to find something quickly as you can choose from day, week or month format. It's never in the right format when I want to find a specific entry, and it's generally easier to flick through a few pages and find the exact day I'm looking for.

3. I love crossing off the days on the calendar at the front of the diary. It makes me excited about things I've got planned for the future... I must stop wishing all my days away.

4. I get such a sense of organised delight when I confirm a date and put it in my diary. I actually get very annoyed if plans get changed or cancelled and I have to edit an entry! I don't even cross out entries any more as it grates on me too much... I just write 'cancelled' neatly by the side of it. I'm well aware that this blog post is making me sound like a crazy person.

5. My diary is perfectly pocket sized so it fits into my many bags and I don't go anywhere without it. I can always whip it out when I need to check if I'm free on a certain date, and I can also use the 'Notes' section at the back to jot down important details, financial transactions and so on while I'm on the go.

I love my paper diary! Does anyone else even still use a paper diary or am I a dinosaur? Let me know!

Wedding planning... highlights so far!

I'm getting married at the end of August (eep!) so I've been busy wedding planning since we got engaged last September. Although it can be a very stressful task at times, I have really enjoyed quite a few aspects of the planning.

I thought I'd share some of my favourite wedding planning tasks and tools with you, and I'll also take this opportunity to give you a little insight into what our plans are for the day so far.


1. Wedding cake samples

I think this must be everyone's favourite wedding planning task. I've had one appointment with a cake maker so far and she provided me with the amazing cake samples below. We asked for lemon, chocolate and fruit cake samples, and we also threw in Neopolitan as an outside option as we were allowed to choose up to four samples. Unsurprisingly, we were busy eating cupcakes all weekend. I can't wait for the next wedding cake appointment... I won't even fit into my dress at this rate!

2. Wedding invitations

Regular readers of my blog will already know that I work in communications and am obsessed with proofreading. These two important factors meant that I was in my element when looking at invitation designs and wording. I possibly spent more time than was necessary on this aspect, but the look and general feel of the invitations was very important to me. The lovely (and very efficient) Anna from Cardiff Invitations has designed our invitations for us, and they'll all be sent out within the next few weeks. I won't write a blog post on them until everyone has received them as I don't want to spoil the surprise. They're beautiful!


3. Choosing my dress, shoes and accessories!

I went wedding dress shopping with my mother at the end of January and managed to find a dress on my first outing. I did try on five dresses, but the one I chose really stood out for me. It's quite similar to the dress I've always pictured in my mind for my wedding day, but there are certain aspects to the dress which I would never even have thought of and which make it very unique. I've also bought a few of my accessories for the day, including this amazing bag for the wedding reception! No sneak previews of anything else I'm afraid, you'll have to wait until after the big day.

4. Browsing wedding ideas on Pinterest

I've already blogged about how much I love Pinterest, and it's been invaluable for my wedding planning sessions. It's been really useful to search for colour schemes, ideas for hair and make up, wedding cakes, table centrepieces, flowers and even ideas for our honeymoon. You can browse my 'Weddings' Pinterest board here. Let me know if there are any other wedding-related boards I should be following!


5. Researching colour schemes

This leads on nicely from the last highlight. We toyed with a few different ideas for colour schemes, but have settled on teal/turquoise with ivory. Teal is quite an awkward colour to get right as there are so many different shades, but I think everything will look really warm and pretty on the day as it's such a rich colour. The ivory will complement the main colour really well, and I like the fact that ivory is traditionally a very 'weddingy' colour. I'll be writing a separate blog post on our colour scheme in the next few weeks... watch this space.


6. Choosing items for our gift list

We've just bought our first house so our Debenhams gift list is full of bathroom and kitchen essentials, photo frames, little things for the lounge and just general items to help us with the process of turning our house into a home. I've loved browsing the Debenhams website for ideas and adding things to the list, as this has also involved choosing colour schemes! Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to add any clothes or jewellery for myself to the wedding gift list.


7. Keeping my wedding planner up to date

I bought a wedding planner at the first available moment after getting engaged, and it's one of my favourite things in the world. It's already chock-a-block with receipts, confirmations, paper samples, flyers and business cards, and I'm busy recording my every move in all the various sections. A decent wedding planner is an absolute must if you're attempting to plan a wedding!

8. Wedding fayres

We've been to two wedding fayres so far this year. One was in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay and the other was in the Copthorne Hotel, our reception venue. The wedding fayre at the Millennium Centre was extremely busy with a lot of pushy 'bridezilla' types, but I did pick up some very useful contacts there such as my florist and the designer for our invitations. We also got to taste lots of wedding cake samples! The fayre at the Copthorne Hotel was much more pleasant and relaxed. We managed to pin down a few more things while we were there as well as having the opportunity to have another look at our reception venue. Wedding fayres can be extremely scary when all the other brides seem to be getting married about 2 years later than you are, but don't be pressured into thinking that you have to sort everything years in advance!


9. Visiting our wedding church 

We're getting married in a lovely church in Penarth and I've really enjoyed going to the morning service every other Sunday for the last few months. Everyone is very friendly, including the Reverend who'll be conducting the wedding service, and it's nice to be welcomed into such an inviting atmosphere. I also love having a good sing song on a Sunday morning!


10. Planning all the food for the day 

Yes, I love food. This isn't a secret. I've loved planning all the food for the day from choosing our menu options for the wedding breakfast, sorting the wedding favours, thinking about flavours for the wedding cake and choosing our options for the evening buffet. I'm hoping I won't be too nervous to eat on the day as we've got some amazing food lined up!


Have you planned a wedding lately? What were your favourite planning aspects?

Organisation is the spice of (my) life

Being organised is a chore for some people. I, on the other hand, love being organised and find it very disconcerting if I feel as if my life is getting disorganised at any point. I love writing to-do lists and ticking items off, planning my meals a week in advance, putting my CDs and DVDs in alphabetical order, colour coding everything, and just generally organising every single little thing.

My friends know all about these habits, and Liz bought me the most amazing present for Christmas. It's a week-to-view planner where I can plan everything as far in advance as I want, and it has nice long columns so that I can write down every little thing! I was feeling extremely stressed last week as I've got much to do in the next fortnight, so I decided to sit down and get planning. I felt loads better after writing everything down and planning what I'm going to do each evening, as everything seemed more manageable and achievable when it was all written down and accounted for.

This list in progress

I actually look forward to getting all the relevant tasks done so that I can cross them off and feel a sense of achievement... I know I know, it's not the most riveting thing to get excited about. 

Can anyone recommend any other tools to keep organised? I've got a diary, book of lists, food planner and calendar, as well as the planner above, but I'm always looking for more!