Asana Task Process etc

Asana can be overwhelming to new comers. Heres a few tips to simplify your asana experience and make the interface more intuitive.

Asana

Asana is a project management system that is a great way to keep project tasks organised and moving along in a team environment.

As a busy team we are constantly checking tasks in asana to see what tasks we currently have with us, tasks we can mark complete and tasks that are ready to be assigned to team mates. It’s a constant movement of tasks until the tasks finally can be marked complete.

You can use Asana as a desktop app or in the browser. The app is better IMO.

Organising Asana

• Star projects so you have quick access to them. Staring ⭐️ projects will make them accessible via left hand sidebar links.
• Ensure relevant team members have been added to the task otherwise they will have no access to it.
• Setup notifications so you get an email when you have been mentioned in an asana task. As I’m using front for email I find this combination of asana notifications coming into front really effective. (Front treats emails a bit like tasks. And you can easily archive your front emails when they are “completed”)

• Add tags to tasks so you can use in a filter

• Once you load a project you can hit customise to filter out all the completed tasks.

Creating tasks

• Task Title (should match the description and actionables of the task)
• Task Date - quite often the task start date is the same as the due date.
• Assignee - assign the task to yourself or another team member.
• Task Description (what are the actionables of the task? Its helpful to include mocked up screenshots and urls)

My tasks

You can view all the tasks assigned to you by hitting the “My Tasks” button in your left sidebar navigation.

Filter your my tasks

• Ensure to filter your my tasks by incomplete tasks.
• Ensure you are viewing your tasks by date due.. this way you can see all the tasks assigned to you for today.

Tags

• If you want to see the tags column in a task hit the hide btn and ensure tags is not hidden
• Its important to note that tags are only used in advanced search

Useful tagging

Tags are only useful when the tagging system is strategic. For instance one tag we use a lot is called “for discussion”

For discussion

Some tasks will lag in progression because more information is required. We use this tag as to quickly list all the tasks needing More information. We can filter tasks with this tag before stepping into team meetings where we can further discuss the requirements of the task.

Subtasks

• If a task is complex, break it up into subtasks. subtasks also allow multiple people to time the same project.

Completing tasks

Before you officially click the “completed” button on a task, you need to assign it to somebody for QA (quality assurance). Use your best judgement when choosing who to assign the task to. Choose the person who is best on the team to do QA or the person who knows the most about the deliverables of a task.

Task comments

• If you have made progress on a task but it is not complete yet. Add a comment to the task if you feel the comment is important and could be considered a milestone in the tasks progression.
• If you are doing QA on a task and you have feedback, add your feedback as a comment and assign the task back.

Keyboard shortcuts

Navigation Shortcuts:

G + H: Go to Home G + M: Go to My Tasks G + A: Go to Inbox G + P: Go to Projects G + L: Go to List view G + B: Go to Board view G + D: Go to Calendar view

Task Shortcuts:

Tab + Y: Assign task Tab + M: Add a subtask Tab + S: Add a section Tab + T: Add a tag Tab + D: Due date Tab + A: Add attachment Tab + C: Add comment Cmd + Return to post comment after writting one Tab + F: Follow task Tab + R: Archive task

Navigation and Selection Shortcuts:

J/K: Move up/down through tasks Enter: Open selected task Ctrl + Enter: Save changes Esc: Close task detail pane

Project Shortcuts:

Q: Quick add task to project M: Move selected task to another project

Other Shortcuts:

/ (forward slash): Quick find Ctrl + S: Save changes Ctrl + Z: Undo Ctrl + Y: Redo