Time planning with Asana possible?

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1

Hi. I’ve used Asana for years now. But keep on doing things double. I put my tasks in Asana and then plan them on paper with the estimated time tasks will take. And after finishing the task, I note the time it actually took.

Q: Is is possible to plan the (estimated) time for each task in Asana?

What I ideally would want, is the option to put tasks in Asana with the estimated time. And then when you move them over to a board (or list), have Asana automatically add up the time all the tasks on the board will take. So I’m able to see at a glance, if I plannend enough, too much, etc.

Is this possible? Of maybe with another programma linked to Asana?

2

Hi, this is a big issue for everyone and Asana is not providing an inbuilt solution, although time management is key to project planning.

You can try the following options:

  1. You can add all tasks you want to plan to a project
  2. Add a custom field to this project, which is a “number”
  3. Add there “estimated time”
  4. this way Asana will add up all the time and you can see it
  • currently you cannot add custom fields in My Tasks, but looks like it is comming soon
  • you can use automation with Flowsana or Zapier to automatically add tasks assigned to you to this planning project
  • you can also use this filed work workload if you add the project to a portfolio

Another option is to use an external tool and there are many. We use Everhour

  • you can add time estimated
  • you can add time spent manually or via a clock start stop button
  • it builds in Asana, so you will have a tab called Everhour per each project so you can see detailed reports
  • it is paid subscription as most other solutions
1 Like
3

Hello Denise,

I would use two custom fields for that - one for estimated time and the other one for the time actually taken to complete this task. If you use list view and numer custom filed, Asana will give you total separate for estimated time and time taken. Custom fields are available starting form Asana Premium.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

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4

I use a separate program for this - Harvest App. It integrates with Asana so I get to log the time I spent on each of my tasks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t display the actual entries inside Asana, as a column. You’ll have to refer to Harvest for the time budget allocation and the actual time spent.

5

Hi @Denise_Dechamps, if you are using the premium version of Asana you can accomplish this with a custom field, you would need to switch to list view to view the totals for a board though (they would be the section totals). If you’re using the business version I would look in to how to use effort in Workload.

7

@Denise_Dechamps Not sure if you still need this, but you can now see a total amount for multiple tasks. You multi-select all of the lines you want to add (although there is a maximum of 50) and a total amount will show up in the black bar along the bottom.

8

I know this is an old thread, but I’m wondering about the Everhour integration and where @IvanStaykov said that there’s a tab called Everhour for detailed reports. I’m not seeing that part. I’d love to be able to say “I have a half hour. What can I do in that time?” and have a list of tasks.