Passion projects are a great way to explore and nurture one’s interests. It’s a way to help you feel more accomplished despite your everyday stresses. While these projects can give you a new sense of purpose and enjoyment, they are nothing without the plan needed to see it through to the end.
After taking the first step to pursue my passion project last week, my next step was organizing my goals and ideas in a cohesive manner. Enter: Trello.
Trello is a project management tool for those who crave an effective and visual way to lay out a hierarchy of tasks. I first learned about Trello when my supervisor implemented it department-wide about six years ago. I had always been a “use a Post-It and pen and call it a day-” type person until I saw first-hand how effective this tool was for organizing both our long-term and short-term goals in a visual way. A huge bonus Trello offers is an archival system so it’s easy to go back and review your progress rather than throw away that sticky note and forget all of the strides you made to reach your goals.
Because my passion project requires extensive research, the pre-production, production, and post-production process, interviewing several people, going on location to record footage and publishing on several different mediums and social media platforms, a project management tool like Trello is crucial for helping me stay on top of my objectives and due dates.
THE APPROACH
My project will include two podcast episodes, two videos and a social media campaign to tie everything together. In order to reflect all the work required to complete this project, I will need to organize my tasks on a week-by-week basis that will each have their own categories and checklists. Doing this will not only help me visualize this long-term project through achievable checklists and action items, but also make the next five weeks less overwhelming.
My approach for breaking down each component of the video series, podcast and social media campaign was creating Trello Cards that detail specific tasks that need to be completed before moving on to the next card. These tasks were broken down into actionable checklists that will help me get one step closer to the finish line.
Because my project will include audio, video and social media elements, I knew I had to divide my tasks into lists that broke down the pre-production, production and post- production portions of my timeline.
The Trello lists I created are as follow:
- Modules
- Research
- Pre-Production
- Production
- Post-Production
- Launch Week
My goal was to create a board in a way that allows the lists to be flexible and easy to adjust or altar as the weeks progress.
MODULES
While this Trello List was not required, I felt that it was important to my board because it will help ensure I’m on the right path each week. By creating a Card for each module, I’ll know how my week will need to progress and how much time I can dedicate to my project outside the scope of that week’s module.
RESEARCH
The amount of in-depth of research I conduct for this video and audio series will not only elevate it to look and sound professional, but it will also bring credibility to the overall project. Everything I note or reference on camera, graphics or on the podcast will be properly cited so viewers and listeners will not have to do unnecessary homework.
The research I will read, view and listen to will also be noted on my bibliography. My bibliography is an ever-changing piece of work so I can add to it when necessary and refer to it when I’m looking for guidance.
When creating the Trello card, I wanted to organize the checklist with equal tasks to ensure I never felt overwhelmed with annotations. The final annotated bibliography will be due on July 10, which I made sure to include as a deadline.
PRE-PRODUCTION
Pre-production is the best way to help the production and post-production process run as smooth as possible. Poor organization can derail a project, which is why pre-production is one of the most important lists on this board.
Here, each card contains tasks about writing my podcast scripts, composing my interview questions, planning my social media graphics and finding music and sound effects for the podcast and video series.
These tasks will be easier to complete with help from the research I am conducting through my bibliography.
PRODUCTION
The Production process is an essential component to any project as that is the part of the timeline where the majority of your work will occur. If you’re not organized, you may find yourself needing to re-record, re-shoot or re-design your work.
Timelines must also be followed to remain professional when meeting with interviewees or with other subjects on location.
POST-PRODUCTION
Once I record everything I need for my podcast and video series, post-production is next and is one of the easiest lists to get through because it involves editing the video and audio I will already have.
I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the videos and Adobe Audition to edit the audio for my podcast. At this stage, I will first edit a rough cut to see if I’ve accomplished what I hoped for and edit my final version as needed.
LAUNCH WEEK!
The final list on my Trello Board is Launch Week. Here, I will include the final social media campaign and the dates each segment will be scheduled to go live.
WRAPPING UP
Organizing detail by detail really helped me piece together my vision for this project. In the end, seeing how my Trello board turned out made me excited for the next five weeks and helped me see that my project is feasible.
View my project plan here:
References:
Placed, S. (2018, March 22). The benefits of organizing with color. Simply Placed. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://www.itssimplyplaced.com/benefits-organizing-color/#:~:text=The%20whole%20reason%20color%2Dcoding,likely%20to%20lower%20your%20stress.
Technolab, Z. (2021, December 16). Hiring remote developers? 7 reasons why project management tools are important. Zignuts Technolab. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://www.zignuts.com/blogs/why-project-management-tools-are-important/#:~:text=A%20project%20management%20tool%20gives,team%20to%20do%20their%20task.