We can probably all agree that 2020 wasn’t the year we’d expected it to be. Many people, teams, and families had to pivot quickly to figure out how to move forward during “these… unprecedented times…”

One thing’s for certain, we leaned on each other, borrowing best practices, figuring out new ways of doing things, and working together (from wherever) to accomplish what we had to. 

This round-up is a tribute to all of the people who shared their ways of doing things in the hopes that it would help somebody else—shoutout to all the MVPs. 

We’re highlighting some of the most popular templates from 2020. Remember, you can discover hundreds of amazing Trello community templates in our free gallery!

Personal Project And Task Management Templates 

In a year with so little we could control, many took the time to look inward and reexamine the way they get stuff done. There is no “right” way to be productive, and this is also a disclaimer that if all you did was survive this year, you’ve done enough. 

Here are some of the most popular templates for personal project and task management this year:

Mise-En-Place Personal Productivity Template

Trello’s Head of Product Management (and one of THE co-creators of Trello), Justin Gallagher is a productivity pro. He uses this template every single day. 

With it, you can split your work into very specific lists so nothing falls through the cracks. Use the reference list to keep important information on hand. Hold yourself accountable with meeting notes, and most importantly: spend some time each morning planning out the day ahead.

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Daily Task Management Template

Created by Mitchell Fry, Lead Software Developer at Oliver Wyman Digital. Mitchell has set up this board to utilize Trello’s built-in automation bot, Butler, to help keep tasks on track. 

Where does Butler step in? Each day at 01:00 Butler will rename the list Done Today to a new list with yesterday’s date, so you can keep track of what you did when. A new Done Today list will be created. 

(Note: You’ll need to set up these Butler rules on your new board.)

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Remote Work Daily Planner Template

With so many people working from home for the first time, Sarah Costello from TalentHub decided to share her team’s Work From Home “WFH” Daily Planner Template. 

This simple and intuitive system is designed to support both individual contributors and managers, and will help individuals and teams collaborate and monitor their working weeks.

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Templates For Team Planning

Many teams had grand plans this year and a lot of them needed to be adapted to the changing environment. A variety of planning and team goal setting templates rose to the top of the community template gallery and many of them can be reused year after year!

OKRs Template

Forever a crowd pleaser, this template by Kevan Lee, VP of Marketing at Buffer demonstrates how his teams rely on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for goal-setting. 

Using a Trello board allows the team to track individual progress on goals and to share progress with teammates utilizing features like checklists and due dates.

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Company Overview Template

Created by the Trello team and pioneered by founder, Michael Pryor, the Company Overview board is the single place where anyone at your company can view current projects and company priorities. 

This is a great way for everybody within your organization to be able to quickly identify project owners, keep up with project statuses, and get a birds eye view of what’s coming up next.

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Project Management Template

Managing projects can be a real slog, but it doesn’t have to be. When you’ve got the right workflow in place, it gives space for your team to focus more on the work and less on the process. 

This year we saw a LOT of people looking for better ways to manage projects. This template put together by Trello’s own marketing team walks you through how to organize info, track statuses, and reduce bottlenecks.

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Templates For Managing A Workflow

Most tasks need a workflow, and most workflows need to be, well… created from scratch. Or do they? Choose one of these templates for your most pressing workflow, and copy it to make it your own.

Program Management Template

This template from Soniya at Broadcom is a program manager’s dream. Calendar, Custom Fields, and Card Repeater Power-Ups enable a repeatable and streamlined workflow that will help any PMO team get up and running quickly and efficiently.

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Client Workflow Management

Created by Jordan Couch, an attorney at Palace Law, this template allows his team to create a simple and easy-to-use workflow for managing clients that are engaging with the firm. 

Being able to access Trello on-the-go has been a huge plus for Jordan’s team—they’re also able to easily connect to other apps they already use like Slack, Google Drive, and Zapier.

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Agile Board Template

Getting things done is a process: it’s a way of thinking that involves planning, execution, iteration, and reflection. Agile or Scrum methodology is defined by Scrum.org as “a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.” 

If you’re into project management theory, you could say, Scrum is a type of agile methodology that uses incremental, iterative work sequences.

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Templates For Learning, Teaching, And Growing

2020 included many learning opportunities, teaching moments, and hopefully some growth. Learn from those who built processes from the ground-up and get inspired by these templates.

Learn A Language

Kudos to those who were able to make time this year to work on learning a language. It’s something many of us want to do but rarely are able to make time for. 

This template created by the CEO of Duolingo helps you build a habit and best practice. After all, learning a language takes time and patience, but most of all it takes consistent practice.

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Teaching Weekly Planning

Emma Trentman, Associate Professor of Arabic at the University of New Mexico created this template to plan out each of her courses. 

As an avid Trello user in all aspects of her life, Professor Trentman saw a very natural fit for how to translate a semester into a Trello board, and an easy way to keep track of all the little details, including assignments, and having an easy way to collaborate with colleagues.

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Turn Over A New Leaf With A New Year (And A New Template)

That’s all she wrote, folks! Hopefully, your team can use one (or all!) of these templates to bring ease to a process you’ve been struggling to refine.

Let’s go into 2021 the same way we left 2020 (well, maybe not the exact same way)—supporting each other the best ways we know how. Happy templating, Trello-ers—and cheers to better days ahead! 

As a reminder, we would love to get your Trello template submissions—how are you and your team using Trello?

Template round-up: the most popular Trello boards of 2020