Feature Request: Make an Idea toggle in tasks

[Kristin_Martin]

I have been using Asana for 3 years now. I love it a lot, but I find that I have one massive hangup with it that causes me to have a very hot and cold relationship with it. I have yet to run into any other similar softwares that have something like this, and I would really love to see it.

I have a very ADHD brain and Asana helps me a lot with visualizing. It also helps me to dump out ideas and get them out of my brain and “onto paper.”

My big problem is that I need to track potential tasks as well as actual tasks and the potential tasks are really clogging everything up and causing me and my coworkers a lot of stress.

Some issues/opportunities with tracking what I’m going to call “Potential tasks”

• My current workflow when dropping in a “potential task” is that when I have an idea or urgent opportunity that I’m not sure if I’m going to assign to myself yet, I make a task. The problem is, if I decide not to take up that idea, it isn’t correct to say it’s “complete” and the flow acts as if I’ve missed a task, not just a potential.
• My ideas get listed right alongside the actual assigned tasks that I have to get done. I do want that as these ideas are often high priority and urgent. But it makes my task list look way more overwhelming than it actually is because these are not required items.
• It is difficult to denote to other users on my projects that these are just 'potential tasks", not actual ones I’m committing to do. And, again, it gets cluttered.
• It would seem logical to just not assign these items until we are sure they’re going to get done, but I rely on my “My Tasks” tab heavily, so that wouldn’t work. I need to see my potentials as well.
• If I add it as a task and give it a due date and then forget it, it will go to my overdue. Then I’ll come into my Asana to a bunch of red overdue tasks and it is not immediately easy to differentiate what is an urgent problem and what is just an “expired” idea.
• Priority doesn’t quite work for this as potential tasks are often high priority due to their urgency, but they are still not required tasks.
• Sections don’t work for this for a similar reason. I have a Parking Lot section but it is at the bottom of all my lists and takes urgent things out of my line of sight.

My proposed solution

• A toggle that turns a task from opportunity or idea to a task. When the toggle is on “Opportunity” or “Idea”, its line item or card shows up gray or outlined or something like that. When the “Idea” or “Opportunity” toggle is turned off, it just asks like a regular task.
• Filters allow for showing only tasks or both tasks and ideas. This helps you to see what you HAVE to do vs everything that needs considered for that day.
• If you decide to take up the task, you just toggle the “Idea” toggle off and then follow thru as normal.
• If you decide at any point not take up the idea, it has a “Resolve” button instead of a complete button.
• If the deadline hits on an idea and it hasn’t been resolved, it just “expires” or auto resolves. Importantly, it doesn’t go to overdue. It doesn’t stick around and clog things up. Of course, with filters, “expired” ideas can be found, but they aren’t clogging up the works.
• This would also be helpful for ongoing little side projects I have going on with rolling deadlines. I can wake up the idea and put it back to sleep as opportunities arise and keep track of my progress on it. When it is ready to roll out, THEN I can make it a task.

I know this is probably a big ask, but after 3 years of fighting with trying to figure out why I can’t make my Asana workflow work, I figured I’d share my discovery.

[Jan-Rienk]

@Kristin_Martin, interesting idea! I’d love to dig into this when I have some more time. (as I’m an autistic adhd-er working in process improvement and have some thoughts on this)

Meanwhile, are you ok with moving this thread to Product Feedback ? That way you’ll reach far more people and they can vote for this feature request.

[lpb]

Note: Not a solution but marked as such to elevate a key reply

@Kristin_Martin,

Until/if Asana offers this specific feature, you can get pretty close using a custom field and rules (depending on plan). Briefly …

Add one single-select org-wide custom field “Task Type” with values:

• Task
• Idea/Opportunity
• Resolved

Include a rule (in all projects that participate and all users’ My Tasks who want to participate) to default all tasks to “Task.” (I was hoping this could be avoided and tasks could just have Task Type unset but that doesn’t allow desired filtering.)

Manually set potential tasks to Idea/Opportunity. If they later become real, actionable tasks, set to Task again.

The members of each project agree to default the project filter to show only Task or both Task and Idea/Opportunity.

Each individual sets their My Tasks filter for Task Type as they prefer.

“Resolve” potential tasks manually ad hoc or via rule for expired by setting Task Type to Resolved and either 1) marking complete, or 2) converting to Approval type task and setting to “Rejected.” Both approaches will be considered Completed tasks and hidden with the “Incomplete work” filter.

Optionally, to distinguish potential tasks right in their title, a rule triggered on setting to Idea/Opportunity could prefix the title with an emoji, like “ Handle > $1000 case differently.” (But if that potential task becomes actionable you’d have to manually remove the emoji then.)

Project Templates to build-in the custom field and rules could simplify setup, as would Bundles.

I think this may deliver most of what you’re looking for without requiring any new feature from Asana.

Curious to hear what @Jan-Rienk might come up with.

Thanks,

Larry

[Kristin_Martin]

Unfortunately, I’m currently using free Asana so I can’t do this. I’ve tried implementing Asana more widely in the org but it didn’t stick, so I lost funding. Problems of working in a tiny nonprofit.

[Kristin_Martin]

Yeah, that’s fine with me. I’d love to see what the larger community thinks on it.

[Rashad_Issa]

Hello @Kristin_Martin

As you are on free version, I would suggest using sections for now.
I do the same with ideas and opportunities worth exploring in the future. What I do, is I have my own private project. I have a section called wishlist.

Any idea that is not a task, is added to the section wish list. I have in my diary on at least monthly basis a slot to review wishlist and see if any needs to be removed or added to the actionable items because business strategy has changed.

When I review the idea, if it is to be closed out or deferred as unneeded, I also add comments and details as to why that is. This helps me in instances when the idea crops up again in 6 months or 12 months, I can explain to the business why this was deferred and ask for what changed so they can make better informed decisions.

In the meantime, make sure you upvote your own feedback

Rashad

[Jan-Rienk]

@Kristin_Martin, I’m splitting this reply in parts to make it more readable.

Asana and ADHD

Keeping Asana up to date can be a struggle, especially for us ADHD-ers.

One of the most important things in making it stick is making it visible.

So when I start work I open Asana (which can be automated b.t.w.)

I keep Asana open on the left side of the screen, and I keep My Tasks open on the leftmost tab. So when I open a specific project or task I use [ctrl]+[click] to open on a new tab, or [shift]+[click] to open as a new window.

So when I’m done with a specific task or project I complete them, I can close the tabs and automatically end up back at My Tasks.

What can be distracting from the work is that little inbox indicator indicating there was some update somewhere, often distracting me from the important work. So what I often do is I close the side bar using [tab]+[o] to keep it out of sight.

Not doing tasks

As for rejecting work on a free plan, it’s not ideal but you could add the emoji at the start of a task name to indicate that for this task complete means it has been rejected.

I’m not sure if the ideal solution for Asana to implement would be different types of tasks, as I feel you can easily indicate variations in tasks types with custom fields.

What would really help in my opinion is to have separate option that indicates the task has been rejected. Something like the proposal here:

Mark a task as "didn't do"

Sometimes I want to check off a task because I DIDN’T do it, not because I completed it. I want to keep the record that I attempted this task. This is often something like, “get feedback from person X”, which I attempt to do multiple times to no avail. This is something that I have TRIED to do, but I haven’t actually achieved. During project review, the little green check marks all suggest that these are things that I have, in fact, successfully completed. It would be very useful if there were a…

Solutions/Workarounds for the not so free plan

The rest of my reply took a little time, and by now I realise most of it isn’t really helpful for you as you seem to be on the free version. (note: Asana does offer 50% off for nonprofit)

I’m going to leave it here anyway as others might benefit.

@Kristin_Martin

If I add it as a task and give it a due date and then forget it, it will go to my overdue. Then I’ll come into my Asana to a bunch of red overdue tasks and it is not immediately easy to differentiate what is an urgent problem and what is just an “expired” idea.

When you use the custom field for Idea/opportunity, you can also add rules triggered by these.

I think this is the rule that’d best serve your purpose.

You can find the Cancel task under External actions under iDO

You could also add these actions yourself like this:

That doesn’t require a third party, but might use up more rule actions if you’re on a restricted plan.

@lpb

Project Templates to build-in the custom field and rules could simplify setup, as would Bundles.

A cautionary comment on this point: I would advise against putting any rules in project templates if they arent in a bundle.

This is because every time you use the template, the rules will get copied with it. So if at some point you want to change the workflow this would mean having to change all of the rules in all of the projects one by one.

In my opinion you’re going to want to be able to change your workflow, because it’s going to give you easier options in the future.