❌ Reject Tasks without confusing people

English Forum Tips and Tricks
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Getting the right stuff done is often about choosing what not to do as opposed to what to do.

“Maximising the amount of work not done.”

A task in Asana is either complete or incomplete. So what do you do when you decide not to do something?

  • Incomplete is confusing since it suggests there is still work to do
  • Complete is confusing since the work has not been done
  • Delete removes it from sight, so it is not clear what things have been chosen not to complete

If you find this as frustrating as I do, I think I might have solved this using existing functionality.

  1. Create a custom single select field field from My Tasks or a Project
    1.1 call it Rejected
    1.2 add one option REJECTED (and make it red)
    1.3 add it to the library
  2. Create a new rule:
    2.1 When Rejected is changed
    2.2 Check if Rejected is set to REJECTED
    2.3 Complete task & Set task title to [❌REJECTED] {Task name}

Now you can reject work simply by marking it as REJECTED in a custom field.

This enables you to get the work you’ve decided not to do out of the way without confusing anyone.

Turn this into a bundle and you can easily share and add this functionality to your projects/templates.

Would love to get feedback on this.

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I’ve been struggling with this exact issue. While a project proceeds we find there are tasks that we thought we needed to do but found a different approach. Your three bullet points were spot on. Thanks so much for sharing your solution!

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Really cool tip @Jan-Rienk, thanks for sharing!

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I personally turn tasks into approvals and rejects them. It looks really good with the Red Cross displayed by Asana.
I created an action called “iDO things > cancel task” if you wanna use it :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I also prefer the approach @Bastien_Siebman mentions that @lpb has proposed here which can actually be automated using iDO’s awesome rule as @Arthur_BEGOU has documented here.

It also uses one rule action instead of two, which should be considered for Starter and Advanced tiers, due to their monthly limitations of rule actions :wink:

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@Bastien_Siebman @Richard_Sather Thanks! Will definitely look into that.

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