My entire life runs in Asana, work and personal. But I’ve realized something: keeping my real-world to-do list in Asana isn’t working. I’m not getting to things like “Sharpen the knives” or “Clean the AC filters.” It’s not a motivation problem — it’s a context problem.
On mobile, getting to just my weekend tasks takes too many clicks. I use the app only to capture new tasks, never to do them.
And on weekends, I’m not at my computer — and when I am, I’m in a digital mindset, not a “clean the house” one.
So even when I see those real-world tasks, I’m not in the right context to act on them. And when I am in the right context, Asana is too many steps away.
A few weeks ago, I started printing my weekend to-do list during my Friday review. That physical list sits where I need it — visible, tangible, actionable. It works. I’m getting my stuff done.
But the process is clunky. Asana’s print options aren’t great, so I copy the list into Word or Notepad++ first.
So I’m curious: How do you handle your real-world tasks?
Do you use mobile? Paper? Another tool entirely?
@Liohn_Sherer - This is a great topic! I ran into this same challenge when I first started using Asana, and here’s where I landed:
If you keep both your personal and work-related tasks in one place, it becomes harder to truly unplug from work and focus on personal life. You might end up seeing reminders about personal things while working, or work tasks when you’re trying to rest.
Asana is incredibly flexible, it can be as simple or as complex as you want, but most of its features really shine when used for collaboration and workflows. For personal tasks, you usually don’t need all the commenting, custom fields, and project tracking.
Personally, I keep things simple by using the Apple Reminders app for personal to-dos. It’s straightforward, works great with Siri, and integrates nicely with Apple Calendar. Since I use Apple Calendar, I can see both my work and personal calendars together in one view, even though they’re kept separate.
Overall, I recommend keeping work and personal task systems separate. It helps maintain boundaries and makes it easier to fully unplug when you’re off the clock.
Just my two cents, I’d love to hear what others are doing too, so we can all get some ideas from each other!
Unlike @Esteban_Giannini, I keep one My Tasks for everything because I’m one person and want to look in one place for what I’m supposed to do. I’ve done this successfully in Asana for the past 12+ years and settled on this some years ago:
But if you’re copying/pasting/printing from Asana, you might consider:
One thing I do is I have a section with my real-world tasks within My Tasks and they get added to a project. Printing is the way to go for me as well, and it’s easier for me to export all tasks as a csv and then print them. On my first workday, I complete everyhting within the project that was already completed.
Interesting, and obvious. I hadn’t considered setting this up, but it may make printing this task set - or maybe even accessing them on mobile - easier. I’ve put it the rule in place, will report back after a couple of weeks’ testing.
I agree witih @lpb about keeping everything in one system, but also @Esteban_Giannini about having a lighter-weight solution for personal tasks only. Some of my “personal” proejcts are just as complex as my professional, and need Asana-level structure, while others would be far easier on a simpler platform. This is why my food shopping list isn’t in Asana! But ultimately I find it simpler to use one tool than two. In a perfect world I’d have full sync between Asana and a simpler Android-native platform for my personal stuff only.
It’s been a while since I last used Asana2Go, I’ll give it a go and see if it makes the weekly printing easier.
How do you handle your real-world tasks?
and see if it makes the weekly printing easier.