Today above new feedback

Hi. I’ve recently experimented with the ‘today above new’ hack, and although i initially thought it is a good idea, after using it for a week I understand that the original method is better.
Since Asana is about organizing work, people should always know about their new tasks - even if only to put them in place (either today or later or whatever).
In short, I found it inconvenient eventually, but the fact that it exists allowed me to test this and realize that it is not right for me. It could be right for other people so the fact that it is there is a good thing.

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Thanks for your experience with this hack, Noam. We’re glad to hear that having the New section above Today is helpful to you.

Hi there,

We wanted to let you know we’ll no longer be supporting the hack Today above New in My Tasks. We understand it can be a disruption to your workflow when hacks are removed, and we apologize for any inconvenience. You can continue using this hack until August 1, 2017 when it will be removed. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your feedback, which you can submit here.

Hacks are experimental features and as such may be removed at any time. Your New Tasks section will now appear above your tasks marked Today. When viewing your My Tasks list, it will now be faster to switch from one task to another, and task information will load much more quickly. This improvement is part of a continued effort to help maximize your team’s workflow speed. Speed and performance is our top priority, and as we re-write Asana to maximize speed, we’ll no longer be able to support this hack.

To update your workflow, consider marking tasks that you intend to work on as Today. Click the drop down arrow beside New Tasks to hide that section.

Please let us know if you have questions. Thanks!

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Please, whatever you do, just don’t remove Tab+B yet! It’s the highlight of my rollout presentation. :cat:

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9 years into my GTD journey (ht David Allen), I’m loving SO much about Asana.

I have been using the ‘Today above New’ hack for ever. In my specifc role, those New Tasks can get pretty noisy, pretty quickly, and as with all good GTD’ers I am strategic about when I get inbox to zero.

Thank you for ensuring the minimize/expand setting is remembered, that’s awesome, and will keep me strategic.

One excellent tweak would be to add a bracketed total on the sections:

  • New (12)
  • Upcoming (43)
  • Later (18)

and/or

option to show the latest 3 or 5 New tasks, with a “there’s more” note … (semi-minimized?)

Having said this, if either of these tweaks send the Dustin crew into “performance hit panic, don’t do it, the view will build even slower” (I think this is a likely reaction), then I will take lightning speed over these suggested tweaks any day.

Thanks team for continuing to develop my second favourite SaaS platform ever.

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Major bummer. For some users having your new above today may not be distracting as it may be easy to prioritize the one or two tasks that are assigned to you quickly without disrupting your work, but with 30-50 new tasks coming in a day it gets really distracting and I find I am always monitoring my new tasks instead of being able to prioritize my day and check new tasks periodically.
I loved this hack and will miss it dearly! I feel like I have lost a dear friend and am now in morning. :slight_smile:

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Removing this hack was a real disappointment and has made my use of Asana a lot more frustrating.

Tasks I had scheduled show up in my Today list but since I have so many New Tasks I don’t even see them anymore only to remember to check them a couple of days later at which point they are late.

I really like Asana but this change really sucks. Please bring Today Above New back.

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Count me as another disappointed user.

I absolutely relied on this hack for the years since I switched to Asana. I was very surprised to have it gone, and spent a few weeks trying to figure out why I couldn’t get it back that way. Yes… some of us are busy enough that we don’t remember deeply buried switches labelled as “hacks” that we had set years ago then relied upon.

As another user said, it “has made my use of Asana a lot more frustrating.”

Count me as doubly frustrated that you made this change to a feature some of us relied upon without giving any obvious warning. This is why I don’t like SaaS: developers seem to think that arbitrary GUI changes that affect their users are just more fun tweaking… whereas us end users have to deal with the consequences of those “fun tweaks.”

(I was a developer for >20 years, so I know what it’s like, and how fun it is to redesign to make things faster and more efficient… but it is a very different experience being on the other end of the stick if the devs haven’t paid attention to disruption in long-term users’ workflows).

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I am also sad about losing this feature.

I like to get in to work and get straight into my Today’s tasks and not get distracted with my new tasks.

Now I find myself getting in and getting distracted with not important stuff and so have become way less productive since the change. Really not happy about it.

Is there anything we can do to get it back? Even better, could we get full control of the order that it shows up in?

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Continue to be frustrated with New Tasks above Today. Would like the ability to set it as an user option.

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Agreed. I am in a similar position. Very frustrating and should be something that can be ordered by the user.

Anyone know how to put Today above New? In my New Tasks I have sections to group tasks together. I have a really long list. So I just realised I cant see my Today tasks, they’re too far down, and now they are quote overdue as they are out of sight. So how can I ensure to see my Today tasks at the top?

Dont worry I have just had to move all my tasks and section titles into the Today section instead of the New Tasks section. It does mean New Tasks appear at the top, which is all the time, and so I have to keep moving them down into another list I have for New Tasks, which is annoying, but hey ho, at least I can ensure the tasks I am working now and not the tasks I will work on later, are appearing at the top. Not ideal though. Dont understand why a useful feature would be removed.