:“Hey fellow optimization-focused individuals of the Asana forum!”
: “I’m Bryan and this is → 
Bryan2. We’re from TeamKickstart (Asana Services Partners - implementations, trainings, automations, and integrations), and we’re delighted to share some of our most impactful Asana AI personal productivity hacks with you.”
: “Wait. Hold on just one hot second. You said this was supposed to be a casual, friendly, fun productivity forum post that we were writing. You just sound so… robotic, ironically. Lighten up.”
: “You’re right. I’ll try to not be so rigid. My brain is just in “bullet-point” mode. I’m just a bit nervous because I really want them to feel how easy and exciting this can all be!”
: “Bullet points are great. Just loosen up. We don’t want to scare them off. I’ll handle the written stuff. You just insert snippets to tell them about what’s helped you, and I’ll handle everything else. Sound good? Good. Let’s do this.”
**May we introduce some of our…**
ASANA AI STUDIO FAVES
Hey everyone! Like Bryan was saying, he calls me Bryan2, but really I’m AI Studio and I can be anyone you want me to be. Here are some of our favorite AI teammates I’ve enjoyed being at TeamKickstart right now:
🙆🏻♀️Wanda the Workload Wizard
Every Friday, gives me a workload report, grouped by team member, including details of work completed, scheduled upcoming work, any team members with workload/capacity risks for the coming week, and a performance report (timeliness of responses, on-time delivery of tasks, etc.)
🕵🏻♂️Agent Alfred, the Automations Advisor
Analyzes my work completed at the end of each day and provides a set of recommendations for which tasks and processes I might be able to optimize or automate to lighten my workload. Also, includes recommended structure for how to build those automations with Asana AI Studio, or Zapier, or as custom Lambda functions in AWS - still working on this one and a ways to go before it’ll be accurate enough to plug’n’play)
🙋🏻♀️Piper the Prioritizer
Auto-sets priority level on tasks based on due date, size and nature of the task, etc. (We’ll show you in this post how to set this one up in 10 mins or less).
👮🏾♀️Patricia the Productivity Protector
When interruptions arise in your day (tasks assigned to you with a due date of today), Patricia automatically evaluates your work plan for the day and makes a recommendation on how to handle the sudden arrival of the new task (We’ll show you in this post how to set this one up in 10 mins or less).
👨🏽💻Carlos the Comprehensive Copywriter
Still building the first draft of this one, but it’s structured to research and rank content ideas, take the top scoring topics and write the content as an in-depth blog post, followed by a shorter version for the Asana forum, followed by an attention-grabbing summary for LinkedIn, and concluding with a 2-3-line teaser for my mailing list. Version 2 will actually publish all these on my behalf once I review, finesse, and approve the content.
🤦🏽♀️Destiny the Dedicated De-Duplicator
I’ll just confess… I’m in love with Destiny the Dedicated De-Duplicator. My brain, going a million miles a minute, constantly makes me think I haven’t logged a task yet, only to find out that it’s the 4th time I’ve created that task. Destiny works wonders at flagging the duplicates for me. Love ya, gal!
👷🏽♀️Dina the Dynamic Delegator
Dina is fairly new to our team; but I can already tell, she’s going to make a bigger difference to the smoothness of our teamwork than almost anything else. She checks upcoming tasks and then checks the team for who is the best match for the expertise, the client work history, and the available time required to be able to complete the task. She also handles beautifully our task handoffs when someone can’t finish a task before they go on Holiday/Weekend and they need someone else to step in to finish the work. Dina – thanks to you, I’ve started getting an hour or more of my evening to myself again so I can make dinner and have a little me time. Sure appreciate you!
🤵🏻♀️Paulina, the President of Productivity, Praise, and Perks
Haven’t yet onboarded Paulina to the team, but she’s definitely going to be the most fun and entertaining member of our crew! She’ll be responsible for sending out a team message each Friday with Productivity Awards bundled with praise/recognition and gift cards for excellent performance by specific team members! I’ve tested each piece of the workflow, but haven’t yet combined it all. Stoked for Paulina to join and will report back!
🧑🏽💼Frank the Friendly Financial Fanatic
Frank’s job is to be the hardballer. His job is to tell me “No.” When I want to spend money on something, Frank’s responsible for asking me the tough questions: Do I need it? Do I need it now? Do I have the money in the budget? (Soon he’ll check that automatically for me). Do I know the estimated ROI and can I justify it with evidence? I tested a conversation with Frank for the first time yesterday, and he’s polite about it, but he’s… shall we say… Frank about it😆.
and other Asana AI Teammates we are adding to our team! We’ll write more about them in future posts. But, for today, we wanted to share some quick wins for how you can make some small or large strides forward in your efficiency by setting up your first AI Studio rules.
NOTE: Here’s a quick intro to AI Studio. The rest of my post will make a lot more sense if you pause a moment to get an intro to AI Studio first, and make sure AI Studio is turned on in your account.
To help you get those first quick wins with Asana AI Studio, let’s just focus on the parts of our workday that we all deal with.
We all…
- Plan, whether it’s 2 days, 2 hours, or 2 minutes in advance of starting our work, we all plan, especially what to do next.
- Do. We all do. And, if our work management setup is fairly optimized, we can reduce amount of time planning and boost the time we spend doing.
- Report. And lastly, we all report back on our work, whether to our boss, to clients, to the board… if we have a job, we report to somebody in the world.
So, if we all Plan, Do, and Report, it seems like a pretty great place to get our first quick wins with Asana AI.
PLANNING YOUR DAY (W/ THE HELP OF AI STUDIO)
8-10 mins to read, 3-5 mins to implement, countless minutes and brainwaves saved every single day!
PLAN: No matter whether you are a front-line team member or a C-level executive, you’ll likely always have more tasks to do than you have time for. So, you’ll need to prioritize. And, yes, AI can help you with that. Let’s look at the essential ingredients of Prioritization and create an AI Studio Rule to help us set Priority.
Whether you know it or not, you probably prioritize what you work on based on two key factors:
(1) Importance, and (2) Urgency.
Importance: the impact a task will have on you or others. Many people often use a custom field in Asana to rank “Importance” as…
–“
A: HIGH Importance (high impact, commitment, public, etc.)”, or…
–“
B: MEDIUM (some impact, commitment, public, etc.)”, or…
–“
C: LOW Importance (low impact, no commitment, etc.)”.
Create your “Importance” custom field with the three options, as outlined above. If you already have an “Importance” field, be very judicious in whether you choose to modify, because if it’s a global field, it will impact every project where the field has already been used.- Urgency: the timing of when a task needs to be done. The easiest way to manage this in Asana is simply with the Due Date field.
The magic comes, however, when you combine Importance and Urgency to determine 
Priority. This helps you know what to do with your limited time. But, while knowing a priority can be very helpful, if it becomes an extra step for planning every task, it can feel cumbersome after a while, which means you’ll be likely to skip setting priorities after a while.
Create your “Priority” custom field with the four options, as outlined below.
1: IMPORTANT & URGENT
2: Important; Not Urgent
3: Not Important; Urgent- 4: Not Important, Not Urgent
🔴IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT URGENCY
Many people loosely use the words “Urgent” and “Important” interchangeably. But, for this rule to be meaningful for you, it’ll be pretty important to come to an agreement on how to define those two words. As a reminder, “importance” is level of impact, but “urgency” is how soon.
Here’s the best way we’ve found to understand and define this:
The Case of the Grocery-Store Coupon.
-
High Importance, Low Urgency:
The 99% off coupon that expires in 5 years: The “Importance” (i.e. “Impact”) of this type of coupon could be extremely high. Just imagine – buying $1,000 of groceries for just $10. Huge impact. But, extremely low urgency because it doesn’t expire for 5 years. You have a very long time to use it and have it still be equally relevant. -
Low Importance, High Urgency:
The $2 off coupon that expires tomorrow: This coupon has extremely low “Importance” (i.e. “Impact”) because it will only save you $2. However, it has extremely high urgency, because… IF you are going to use it, you have to use it by tomorrow or it’s a moot point.
But wait! 
Piper the Prioritizer can help! For tasks that you manually set the Priority for, we can ignore those and keep your chosen priority. For tasks where you didn’t set a priority, AI can do it for you! All you need to do is add a very detailed (but plug’n’play) AI Studio Rule to tell Piper the Prioritizer how you like to prioritize. I’ll help you set it up!
NOTE: If you need a quick intro to Rules, here’s a great Asana help article about Rules (great 3-min video overview of rules).
Here’s a pre-built and thoroughly tested starter setup for “Piper the Prioritizer” AI Studio Rule:
- TRIGGER(S): You can set this rule to mark the Priority of any task due in the next 14 days. It’ll work best if you set up 2 versions of the rule so you can set tasks due in the next 0-7 days as “Urgent” and tasks due in 8-14 days as “Not Urgent”. This way, it reflects reality in that it becomes more Urgent the more the due date approaches. And, as you may know, triggers for “Due Date is Approaching” are set up using exact numbers of days, so you’ll want to add 8 triggers for your first rule version and 7 for your second version. (e.g. Due today, Due in 1 day, Due in 2 days, etc.)
For clarity around the differences between urgent and important, please read the “
- CONDITION(S): This is where we start to see the magic of AI Studio, because if you already set the “Priority” yourself, we don’t want to override your decision. But, if you have not set the “Priority” already, we want to ask AI Studio to assist you. However, there’s no built-in condition to check who exactly set the “Priority” field previously; but, AI can check it that for you using AI Conditions.
Use this prompt for your AI Condition:
AI CONDITION: “The “Priority” custom field is empty OR it was populated by you, AI Studio”
-
ACTION(S):
- Set “Importance” field to… and then, for the value in the field, choose “Use AI”
- Set “Priority” field to… and then, for the value in the field, choose “Use AI”
-
GUIDANCE: Remember, for AI Studio rules, you have to add a detailed “prompt” (i.e. set of instructions) telling AI what exactly you want it to do. And, the longer, more detailed, more explicitly clear, the better.
Use this prompt for your AI Guidance:
GOAL: your responsibility is to help make sure there’s a clear priority set for each task that it is due soon.
INSTRUCTIONS: priority is a function of both importance and urgency. Follow the instructions below to set the priority field. If there’s nuance that you cannot confidently resolve, leave a comment and @mention the assignee with a detailed explanation of your reasoning for your choice; still set the priority but leave them details of why it was a tough decision and what factors the assignee should consider in determining if it was the correct priority. If/when you comment, always sign your comments as “
–
Tasks due in 0-7 days will be considered urgent, even though there is not a place for you to mark it as urgent. Tasks due anything more than seven days out will be considered not urgent, until they are due less than 7 days out. To clarify, “Importance” has absolutely nothing to do with “urgency”. A task as meaningless as “Say the word “Hello” out loud while touching your chin” that has a due date of TODAY is of extremely low importance and extremely high urgency.
–
High Importance:
- Client-facing tasks or client-facing deliverables (e.g. “Send Jim the report he asked for”, a task in a project that says “SOW”, “Client Work Log”, or that contains the name of an organization or name that sounds like a client-facing project)
- Tasks that are deliverables for high-ranking positions or medium/large groups of people (e.g. “Send performance report to CEO” or “Send new benefits package to all employees”
- Tasks that sound large or highly impactful in the size of work (e.g. “Send annual report”) or that have large values in the Estimated Time field (e.g. above 10 hours)
- Anything else that, in your careful judgment, you could safely assume is of high importance, meaning high impact.
–IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT MEDIUM IMPORTANCE TASKS: The Eisenhower Matrix relies on a simplified 2-level rank for importance: High, and Low. But, people are very unlikely to take time to log tasks that are of “Low Importance” and very unlikely to actively select an importance level for something totally inconsequential. So, for the tasks that meet the criteria of “Medium Importance”, as outlined here, treat them as “Medium Importance” and mark them as such.
Medium Importance:
- Any non-high-importance task that involves a commitment to another person or group of people. (e.g. “Send Jenna the link I promised to send her”)
- Any non-high-importance task that sounds like a commitment to oneself (e.g. “Record progress on my budgeting goal”, or “Figure out how to reduce my stress”)
- Tasks that sound moderately impactful or of moderate impact in the size of work (e.g. “Send monthly report”) or that have large values in the Estimated Time field (e.g. 2-10 hours)
- Anything else that, in your careful judgment, you could safely assume is of medium importance, meaning medium impact.
- It’s safe to assume that if a task does not meet the criteria of “High Importance”, and it’s not marked as “Low Importance,” then it’s of “Medium Importance”
–
So, if it is empty or is populated and was verified to be populated by you (the AI) in the last update, then update the Priority field to reflect the calculation from the Eisenhower Matrix.
These are the options:
GOOD EXAMPLES:
Here’s a good example of each:
REMINDERS AND WARNINGS:
Do NOT override human-selected Importance or human-selected Priority field selections.
Do NOT @mention anyone other than the assigned user.
Do NOT attempt to comment or weigh in on anything other than Importance, Urgency, and Priority.
Reminder: “Urgency” has nothing to do with importance. It’s only a factor of how soon the task must be done. Follow the instructions regarding urgency and ONLY consider due date when determining urgency.
–
Yes, yes, yes – the above prompt is an extremely long prompt, but AI thrives on ultra-detailed prompts, as long as the content is instructional and meaningful. I almost always follow the prompt structure I outlined above (feel free to copy and save this as your default outline for a prompt):
Anyway, even though it took me a very long time to write and test that prompt, you can simply copy & paste the large prompt (GUIDANCE) into your Asana AI Studio rule and it should work beautifully!
Now, let’s move to the DOING phase of your day.
DOING YOUR TASKS (W/ THE HELP OF AI STUDIO)
DO: Doing is really about BALANCED FOCUS… it’s about staying committed to and focused on the plan you already committed to. But, in the actual workplace, this has to be balanced with the reality of the inevitable interruptions that happen every day. So, the magic of being a truly productive and reliable team member comes in knowing how to determine which interruptions are Important enough and Urgent enough to make the re-prioritized use of your time a good and wise choice.
Ultimately, YOU are the decision maker, but it’s much easier if you have an AI Teammate, 
Patricia the Productivity Protector, to help you quickly make a wise triage decision re: the interruption.
This AI Studio rule will actively rely on your existing Importance, Urgency, and Priority data to help make recommendations about interruptions. Patricia the Productivity Protector will also look at blocked tasks, if any, and time estimates, to forecast the impact of the new interruption.
Here’s a pre-built and thoroughly tested starter setup for Patricia the Productivity Protector AI Studio Rule:
-
TRIGGER(S): you can set this rule to run when any newly created task is added to your my tasks. We will set it with a condition that’ll make sure it doesn’t run too often or for irrelevant items. You will also want to southeast a secondary trigger for if the due date is changed so that it will include tasks that were previously created and have been changed to have a due date of today.
-
CONDITION(S): It’s important to set a condition for this to only run for tasks that are marked with a Due Date of Today. This helps make sure that the rule only runs when there’s a newly created task with a due date set for today, essentially indicating that it poses a threat to your current work plan for the day. This condition is a really interesting one because we can’t actually have triggers that are based on a due date of today and still have them run for tasks that are created today. This is because due date based triggers run at midnight the moment the date changes on the clock. But by implementing this as an AI-based condition, we can essentially accomplish the same thing.
AI CONDITION: “The “Due Date” field is set to today.”
-
ACTION(S):
- Add comment, and for the contents of the comment, click to use a variable and choose “Use AI”.
-
GUIDANCE: Remember, for AI Studio rules, you have to add a detailed “prompt” (i.e. set of instructions) telling AI what exactly you want it to do. And, the longer, more detailed, more explicitly clear, the better.
Use this prompt for your AI Guidance:
GUIDANCE:
Your responsibility is to check all newly created tasks that are set with the due date of today or tasks that have their due date changed to being due today, and evaluate whether the interruption is important enough or urgent enough to justify adjusting the work plan for the day and allowing for the interruption.
Look at all other tasks assigned to this user that are also due today or have a work day set for today to help you make recommendation. Specifically investigate the importance field, the priority field, and the tasks that are blocked by this task. Also look at the time estimate for this task to help in your decision. Evaluating all of that information, make a specific and detailed recommendation in a comment, @mentioning the assignee, advising on whether the interruption should be attended to. Also remember to check the time estimates of the other tasks currently scheduled to be worked on today by that user to determine if there is capacity or other words bandwidth on this user’s work plan for today to be able to attend to the interruption without significantly delaying or impacting other tasks scheduled for work today. Take into account the time of day and the users time zone, and operate under the assumption that users want to be done with work by 5:00 PM in their time zone. Sign your comments as “
For example, if Jonah has 6 1/2 hours of estimated time allocated to the tasks on his work plan today, meaning they are due today or they are set with a work date of today, and if a new task is created that is set with the due date of today, and if that new task is a sizable task like create five year strategic plan, then it’s safe to assume that that will push Jonah beyond capacity for today. However, we then need to look at the importance of the other tasks on his work plan today. If they are all of medium importance, and they are not part of collaborative projects, or there are no blocked tasks waiting on Jonah, and if you look at the new task and the task name or the importance field or the priority field indicate that it is indeed a highly important or highly impactful task , then you should recommend that Jonah consider allowing for the interrupted diverted use of his time to spend focusing on the newly created task or newly dated task. Finally, if it’s already 4:30 PM and Jonah only has 1/2 hour left in his day, then it would make sense to tell Jonah it’s probably not a wise decision to accept the interruption.
if Jonah has no tasks due today and only one task set with a work date of today and it appears to be a short or simple task, and it’s still only 9:15 in the morning, then it’s pretty safe to recommend to Jonah to accept the new task as an acceptable interruption and divert his time to focusing on that task.
Do NOT override human-selected Importance or human-selected Priority field selections.
Do NOT @mention anyone other than the assigned user.
Reminder: “Urgency” has nothing to do with importance. It’s only a factor of how soon the task must be done, if it’s going to be done at all.
–
Anyway, even though it took me a very long time to write and test that prompt, you can simply copy & paste the info into your Asana AI Studio rule and it should work beautifully!
Now, let’s move to the REPORTING BACK phase of your day.
REPORTING ON YOUR WORK (W/ THE HELP OF AI STUDIO)
So, here’s the deal. I have some prompts I’ve been experimenting with for reporting back on my work to other stakeholders involved. However, I want to crowdsource from you and I want to make sure and thank you for it. 
learning from others has been the most meaningful way that I have been able to expand what I do with AI studio.
COMPETITION – SHARE YOUR IDEAS TO WIN
–
So, let’s have a little competition. Let’s share ideas for how AI can help us closeout our day, plan forward, and/or report back on the work we’ve completed.
Or… any other interesting, meaningful, high-ROI way you’ve been using Asana AI Studio!
ALL IDEA ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED HERE AS REPLIES BY MAY 21st.
Whoever shares an idea that my team ends up implementing, we’ll throw you in a raffle for one of the following gift cards:
- $250 to Amazon (for productivity-tech purchases, of course)
- or $500 of Asana swag
- or 3 lifetime Pro licenses to Supersana.io and 3 lifetime Pro licenses to EasyTasker.io (Asana add-ons my team made) ($762 worth of Asana add-ons)
I like to reward people for amazing, impactful ideas.
So, my apologies in advance if you don’t like money.
To make the giveaway a little more fun, we’re going to have “
:Paulina, the President of Productivity, Praise, and Perks” deliver the prize. I’ll screen record while she chooses a winner and will post here after the competition ends.
Get your ideas posted here as replies to win (cold, hard cash/prize of your choice from list above)!
IMPORTANT NOTE: Asana is not sponsoring, endorsing, or administering this competition and is not responsible for selecting winners or awarding prizes.
