Three Ways to Organize Your Writing Life {Plus a FREE Trello Board}

Three Ways to Organize Your Writing Life Plus a Free Trello Board

Writing is really messy. If you are anything like me, you have files strewn across your laptop and desktop, writing software on one but not the other, notes in your journal, your planner, and on the side of your grocery list. And that’s just for general writing. If you’re writing a novel, memoir, or nonfiction, you might have experienced this: You sit down, eager to write about that one idea you had the other day while you were in the shower. You remember jumping out, dripping wet to write it down---or did you type it? You look through your phone, your text messages, your notes app, your Evernote app. Nothing. You skim through notebook after notebook. Thirty minutes later you sit down in frustration.

If this sounds like you, here are three ways to organize your writing life.

Idea 1: Have a dedicated writing notebook and an electronic version for your phone.

Instead of jotting down your writing ideas in any notebook, keep one small notebook handy in your house for when inspiration hits. Then when you sit down to write, you know all of your writing ideas are in one place. Similarly, pick ONE note app to use in your phone and then make ONE writing note that you update when you have an idea when you are out of the house. This way you don’t have to browse through dozens of apps and notes.

Idea 2: Invest in Scrivener

If you are working on a full-length project, I highly recommend investing in Scrivener. It basically allows you to have separate files, notes, and sections for your WIP, all stored in ONE file. So when you go to work on your story, you don’t have to open several different files in Word, you open your Scrivener file and it’s ALL RIGHT THERE. It’s really convenient and has lots of other great features. There is a bit of a learning curve, but they have an easy tutorial to get you started and even if all you use are the basics of the software, it’s worth the investment.

Idea 3: Use Trello.

Trello is my fave organizing tool right now for my business. I’m planning on adapting it for my personal life as well--and it just occurred to me the other day that it would also make an AMAZING tool for writing. How, exactly, would you use it for writing? Trello consists of boards, lists, and cards, so the possibilities are essentially endless. And while that’s lovely, it sometimes results in overwhelm. So I made you a WIP board that you can copy and tweak to fit your current work in progress.

The great thing about Trello is it's available anywhere you have an internet connection, from any computer--and they even have a free app. This means you can truly keep all your notes and writing in one place (mind = blown).

Here is what the board looks like:

Free Trello Board for Your Writing
Free Trello Board for Planning Your Writing
Free Trello Board for Planning Your Writing

****Note: The purpose of this post is not to explain how to use Trello, but there are TONS of great tutorials out there including the one Trello walks you through right when you sign up.

And here’s a video showing you how it works:

Get the FREE Trello board for writing your novel by clicking the button above or clicking here. (Instructions about how to copy the board are included on the board itself--have fun!)

Happy writing!

Ashly

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Free Trello board for organizing your work in progress
Ashly HilstComment