🤟 3 reasons why you should mention someone in a comment

The simple act of mentioning someone in a comment has more implications that you might have thought.

:one: it adds the mentioned user as a collaborator. Meaning they get notified right away of the comment, and will be notified of any new activity on that task. Unless they remove themselves (and they often should to reduce the noise).

:two: it makes it clear who you are talking to, especially when there are several collaborators involved, and if you have several times the same firstname.

:three: mentioning someone that is already a collaborator is also a way to save a tiny bit of the energy required to check if that person was already a collaborator. Mention them anyway, worst case scenario they were already there, best case they weren’t and you brought them back!

Anything I missed?

:fr: Version française

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100% agree! Also imagine if there are several “Michael” in the same conversation. Only if you @ mention the right one, it’s clear who you are referring to.

Very good point, I updated the post with your point!

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So I recently had a director who said, please don’t list me as a collaborator unless I really need to be a collaborator. He is in charge of marketing so collaborates in theory on a lot of stuff. I said, not sure how that is going to work, how are you going to keep on top of things if you are not listed. I haven’t had time to look into this further… what are the advantages and disadvantages of being listed as a collaborator? How do you keep someone informed if they are overwhelmed by the Asana update emails?

He is 100% right (did I advise him? :grimacing: )
If the teams and projects are public, or if he is a member, he can access the task. You should mention him when you have a question, and then after he answers he can remove himself. Otherwise, he will drown under notifications. He can also build several reports to specifically look at overdue tasks, urgent tasks, tasks delegated by his managers etc