I have been using Asana for 10 years, and I had 3 breakthrough realizations that completely reshaped the ways I was using the tool.
A priority based My Tasks with specific rules
I quickly dumped the regular “Today”/“Upcoming”/“Later” for my own sections, and after a few iterations, I landed on “Top priority”/“Important”/“Secondary”. It really works well for me.
I also decided to move the “Recently assigned” below the “Top priority” to make sure I tackle what matters first.
Finally, I created three rules: a simple auto-promotion, moving a due today task to “Recently Assigned”; as well as a “Task is no longer blocked” also promoting tasks; and finally snooze sections pushing the due date of tasks placed in them.
A meta system where a client is both a project and a task within its project
We have been using Asana as our CRM forever, but the real breakthrough was realising a client/lead needed to be a task (to get a list of them all with custom fields and dashboards) as well as an entire project, to be able to manage invoices, quotes, sessions without using subtasks. The key element was to place the task itself at the top of the project. It allows us to easily navigate and go up and down in our system.
A task belongs to a project, a project is connected to a portfolio and a goal
This is the latest of our breakthrough. We felt like there was a missing piece, until we realised the Pyramid of clarity Asana was promoting was not only a marketing idea: it was the missing key.
Each task we have (a content to create, a tool to build, a bug to fix) is part of a specific project. Each project has usually a similar layout: a backlog section, a “Priority” section and an “Ongoing” section.
Each project is also part of a portfolio (Marketing, R&D…) as well as connected to a goal (release 12 tools this year, keep a bug-free tool set…).
Our daily work uses the tasks and projects. Our weekly review looks at portfolio. Our monthly review looks at goals. It is all connected.
What were your breakthrough?
