Since I started using Asana, I’ve always been eager to optimize it for my organization and team. However, as my activities grew—with more projects to manage, more collaborators involved, and an increasing number of tasks—I faced a significant challenge: lack of visibility.
Managing multiple projects and teams can quickly become complex, especially when information is not centralized or clear enough. In this article, I’d like to share the solutions I implemented to overcome this challenge. I’m also eager to learn from others in the community—if you have additional ideas or practices, I’d love to hear them. My goal is to help others in the Asana community implement best practices for clearer organization and teamwork.
The Visibility Challenge
The primary difficulty I faced was understanding, in real time, where my team members were with their tasks, which actions required immediate attention, and which resources were overloaded or underutilized. I lacked this comprehensive overview, which slowed down decision-making and responsiveness.
To address this, I decided to leverage custom fields in Asana, and here’s what I set up.
The Solutions: Three Key Custom Fields
- Estimated Time
This field has become one of my favorites. I added a custom field to estimate the time required for each task. This helps me:
Visualize the workload of each team member.
Quickly detect imbalances—who is overloaded and who has capacity for more tasks.
Plan realistically by optimally distributing resources.
Although I don’t have the “Enterprise” plan, I found a workaround by using the portfolio feature to group all my projects. This gives me an overview of resources and simplifies monitoring. Of course, this requires discipline: every task must be estimated consistently.
- Status
This field allows me to easily track task progress, far more effectively than using traditional columns or sections. I standardized the following options:
Not Started
In Progress
On Hold (Blocked)
Completed
With this system, I can generate detailed reports to quickly see what’s moving forward and what’s stalled. It also helps me identify bottlenecks (blocked tasks) and prioritize the necessary actions to unblock my team members.
- Priority
Lastly, I added a custom field to define the priority level for each task (High, Medium, Low). This field helps me maintain a clear focus on what needs to be addressed first, especially when urgent tasks arise.
Standardization and Discipline
I standardized these three fields across all my projects, while keeping the flexibility to add other project-specific fields as needed. This standardization has significantly improved clarity and centralized the key information, making it accessible at a glance.
Results and Learnings
Since implementing these practices, I’ve noticed a clear improvement in how I manage projects and collaborate with my team:
Better communication: Everyone knows where they stand and what’s expected.
Reduced bottlenecks: Blocked tasks are quickly identified and addressed.
Realistic planning: I can adjust workloads based on my team’s actual capacity.
That said, I recognize that this approach isn’t perfect. For instance, time estimation can sometimes be subjective, and it requires continuous monitoring.
A Call to the Community
I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Have you faced similar challenges in Asana? What tools or methods do you use to improve project and team visibility?
I hope this article helps those looking to structure their organization better and enhance team collaboration. Feel free to share your ideas or suggestions in the comments. Together, we can refine our practices and unlock even more value from Asana.
Thank you for reading!