If you've followed us at all, you know we start our matter management boards and process maps the old-school way: sticky notes on the wall. The banner image for this post is a shot of one of our office walls. As you can see, we use a LOT of sticky notes.

But we’re not always in our office. Today I want to share two apps you can use to get your sticky-notes off the wall and into a format that you can can access remotely and share with your team. These are apps that we use. We don’t have any affiliate relationships with them, and don't receive any compensation for recommending them.

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1. The Post-It® App

The Post-It® app is my newest obsession. It allows you to take a picture of your wall of stickies using your phone or tablet. Then the app magically converts the picture into an image you can manipulate.

You can rearrange your stickies manually or use default arrangements, add new stickies or delete ones you don't need, and even create new boards from scratch inside the app. When you’re done, you can export your board as a PDF or PNG, or send it directly into PowerPoint.

The app even worked on a board we built on a window in our office. (If you look closely, you’ll get a sneak peak at our upcoming Matter Management Masterclass because that’s what is on the board.)

Biggest surprise: the app lets you annotate individual stickies. You can even erase things that are on the stickies that you’ve photographed. I find this really useful. It allows me to remove sensitive information from stickies when I need to.

I’m still learning all of the things this little app can do. So far, it’s proving to be a really useful tool for capturing matter management boards and planning sessions…and that frees up more space on my wall for new boards! And it’s free!

2. Trello

Our office runs on Trello. The app lets you create a visual to-do list in the standard matter management format David was talking about last week, with columns for the phases of your work (Trello calls them lists), and cards for your tasks. We use it to create workflows and more traditional to-do lists. Here’s our workflow board for our weekly blog posts.

You can set up team boards, assign tasks, and set reminders and due dates. And with automations, you can speed up your workflows.

Trello lets you attach attach documents and notes to your cards. And with the integrations, you can create Trello cards from emails, Evernotes, Slack messages and more. You can also use the comments section to communicate directly to people who are working with you. I love that feature, because it takes that communication out of email and keeps it all centered on the task. We use it all the time with our assistant.

Trello will appeal to you if you want the benefits of mobile access and collaboration, combined with the innate satisfaction of physically moving your cards through your phases and into the Done column. But if you’d rather just click a button to move your card along, there’s a nifty Button feature that allows you to do just that.

Try out the free version and see if it works for you.

Biggest surprise: The Post-It® App can talk to Trello! You can export a Post-It board directly into Trello. All your stickies will appear as cards on a new Trello board.

Oh, and before I forget, we’re only a few weeks away from our Matter Management Masterclass. It's a unique online event that includes recorded lessons, activities and worksheets, and two 30 minute live-online Q&A sessions with us. We’ll be live on the day of the course, December 4, and again 2 weeks later to answer your questions once you've had a chance to put your new skills into action. Places are limited, so sign up now.

And that’s it for this week’s tip. Join us next week for more on building a profitable and productive law practice.

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Thanks a lot everybody! See you next week.