Why “Board Velocity” is a Key Factor for Highly Effective (and Motivating) Work in Trello

Trello is a powerful tool for managing your tasks and projects. But unless you use it the right way, working with Trello can feel slow, frustrating and demotivating.

In today's video, we're looking at a key factor that can help you get more out of Trello, whether you're working alone or with a team. What we're diving into today is a psychological factor - it affects how you feel and how motivated you are. And that will have a huge effect on how much work you get done.

Check out the video to learn all about this factor, which I call "Board Velocity".

Notes & Links

• If this is the first of my Trello related videos you're seeing, make sure to check out part 1 and part 2 as well.
• If you aren't using Trello yet, you can sign up for a free account here.
• Learn more about the Card Aging power-up here.
• When breaking down tasks into smaller chunks, note that you can also link cards together, to keep them organized around an individual project or client. You do this by adding one Trello card to another as an attachment.

More on the Psychology of Board Velocity

A psychological factor that I didn't mention in the video applies the "one day or less" principle: when creating tasks, break them down into chunks that can each be completed in one day or less.

Here's an example: let's say your workday is 8 hours and you have a task that will take "about 2 days" to complete. You're likely going to spend 2 whole days on it and you won't work anywhere near your maximum effectiveness.

Why?

Because right from the start, you'll feel like this can't be done in one day anyway, so you won't push hard to finish the task. In fact, you'll find that you work the most effectively in the last 1-2 hours, when the task is almost done and your workday is almost over. Then, you're suddenly motivated to get it over with.

Parkinson's Law comes into full effect: you're more likely to fill 2 entire days with a "more than 1 day" kind of task than to finish it early on day 2.

On the other hand, if you take the same task and you break it down into 4 smaller chunks, you can plan it like this:

Day 1: Complete chunks 1-3.
Day 2: Complete chunk 4 and complete several other small tasks.

As a result, you'll have things that need to be finished on day 1 already. And you might find that you complete all of the tasks in a total of 10 hours instead of 2 whole days. The same amount of work gets done, the quality is the same, but it takes less time because of the way you broke down, planned and "deadlined" your work.

All this results in faster board velocity, which is highly motivating and enjoyable. And as a result of that, you'll be more productive. It's a virtuous cycle!

Get Implementing!

Board velocity is super important so I hope I've managed to convince you of that. It's not something you can simply "switch on", though. It's more like a habit you must develop and strengthen over time.

It is worth doing, so get started right now and if you have questions or get stuck on something, please let me know!