Most people don’t use Asana correctly, especially the Inbox.
If you had the immense pleasure of attending an Asana training by yours truly, you know that I believe My Tasks and Inbox are the most important screens in Asana.
You’ll spend your days in them, rather than in projects. For this reason, you need to master the Inbox! Below is a list of everything I do, teach, and preach about Inbox.
- if you receive too many notifications, I can safely say that your settings are the problem, not Asana
- update your default project notifications in your settings, you should almost never be notified about new tasks
- if you still get notified about new tasks in old project, click the black bell on this Inbox’s notification
- your Inbox is not a todo list, if there is something to do either assign the task to yourself or create a follow-up task
- in the settings > hacks, you can disable notifications for tasks due today
- archive things you’ve read/acted on and aim for inbox zero every single day
- if you filter the notifications (e.g. “@mentions only”) make sure to go back to “all” regularly
- the expand button at the top should be blue so you can see all newest activities in the main thread
You are all set for success!
Anything I missed?
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BIG ONE (for me): Keep your collaborators clean to avoid unnecessary notifications
I think there are lots of people that either don’t understand the collaborator portion of a task or don’t even know it exists down at the bottom of the task window. There are many projects and templates that I created where I was unknowingly listed as a collaborator. I kept getting notifications in my inbox when someone would mark a task complete. I tried updating my notification settings, tried editing my permissions on a project, even tried removing myself from a project. Notifications I didn’t care about were still cluttering up my inbox all day long, and (I feel a little silly saying it) I could NOT figure out why. Then I realized I was listed as a “collaborator” on many tasks within templates that we use many times over. I didn’t even know that section existed! It’s so small at the bottom of a task, and it’s not immediately clear that you’ll get notifications if you’re listed. Now that I’ve gone through and cleaned that up, my inbox is MUCH cleaner!
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Removing yourself from templates is 100% important, it should not happen anymore with templates V2.
However I am more cautious about removing other people from tasks. Sometimes I am tempted to remove a colleague thinking “they won’t care about this comment I am about to post”. But that is not for me to say so I don’t do it anymore.
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“Most people don’t use Asana correctly, especially the Inbox.”
If most people use a product feature not ‘correctly,’ it’s probably a poorly designed feature. Not a problem with the users.
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I’m 1000% agree with you on this. Asana very slow upgrading their apps. While now many option out there more better. Time to leave
I follow the roadmap very closely (sometimes daily) and I can tell there are tons of things being deployed or planned. They just don’t all impact your daily way of working.
We know that some competitors release more often, but they are also known for having more bugs 
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Hi Bastien
You mentioned you are running training sessions on this, would you have details on this?
Kind Regards,
Shane
How did you solve the problem, Anna? I have this exact issue!
I’m automatically added as a collaborator on so many tasks and subtasks (I made all the project and task templates originally). Can’t figure out how to make it stop adding me!
Thanks
I had to manually go back through and remove myself from the collaborators sectopm on every single task within the templates we use frequently. It was a bit daunting at first, but it also gave us an opportunity to refine the templates we’re using.
Projects that are already in progress (those where I’m still listed as a collaborator) are a grey area for me. Some I remove myself when I have the time. Others I just ignore knowing soon we’ll be caught up (in-progress projects will be completed, and the new templates without me as a collaborator will take over).
You can contact us through http://ido-clarity.com 
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Thank you for the tips.
I would add:
- use the available shortcuts (“E” for archive is a must).
Hey Bastien, where could I find this Asana roadmap?
Thank you,
Paul
It does not really exist anywhere. I follow the forum, I talk to Asana representatives often, as a Forum Leader and Partner I also have access to info. I put everything together into my own roadmap, by hand.
We have an issue. We haven’t cleaned up our Asana inboxes and there is a lot of items. Is there a quick way to get rid of old notifications?
The inbox has a « … » menu with « archive all »
Thanks - I used that - do I just have to unarchive things I want to keep in the short term?
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Great Tips thank @Bastien_Siebman. I agree with all, but I could add maybe something else.
The way that works for me to optimize my efficiency with notifications is that I apply to my Asana inbox what I once applied to my email inbox (to combat over-checking & ADHD):
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I use the “Do not disturb mode” for a part of the day, when I want to remain as focus as possible (eg. morning)
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I have dedicated 15 min time slots in my agenda to “Triage my notifications” (every 2-3 hours)
=> The benefit for me: More productive and less stressed! 
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This is really hard for me because my email Inbox is basically a infinite resources for gift: there is always a potential good news in my emails, and I want to check often 