I wanted to share this memo I sent to the team recently about how we can be all more efficient by trusting the system in place!
As a team, we have ambitious goals. We want to grow the ARR, increase the number of clients, and expand to new regions and markets. We can’t scale that much and that fast without a strong system in place. And we should be able to trust the system, otherwise our brains will do it for us and we’ll be overwhelmed pretty quickly.
I had this realisation after working with Arthur and Julien on their My Tasks. They had the same reaction, that I can summarize this way: “If I place this low priority task here, it will never get done”.
It wasn’t the exact sentence obviously, but once rephrased, that’s what it really meant. If the system we create together pushes secondary tasks at the bottom of our very long list, that’s a good thing right? If an idea we have simply stays in an idea bucket and gets reviewed once a year at most, that’s enough, isn’t it?
Except that we often don’t trust the system. We are afraid our task will never be reviewed or done. We are afraid a non-important task will never get done. So we create exceptions in our system. We put into “Top priority” something that is a low priority. We put an idea into a “to do” bucket. We create new sections just to make sure something gets done.
There are a few universal truths I live by, I’d love to see what you think about them!
Truth #1: if something is important, it will be top-of-mind. If it isn’t important, you can forget about it.
What it means: you should be ok pushing at the bottom of the list something that isn’t urgent or important. Because those things have a way of coming back if they ever become urgent or important.
Truth #2: if something isn’t important, not doing it is fine.
What it means: a medium or low priority might never get done. That’s ok. If it becomes important, see truth #1, you’ll think about it and raise the priority.
Truth #3: the longer you wait, the less important something becomes.
What it means: a fair bit of all those medium and low priorities will either become redundant, irrelevant or counter-productive. Putting them aside and wait before doing them is actually pretty efficient since you might end-up not doing them at all.
Truth #4: most ideas suck, are too early, or too distracting
What it means: it is better to place ideas in a specific bucket and review them often, rather than discussing them right away. Most of my best ideas ended up being pretty lame the next day.
Truth #5: you are not always the right person for the job
What it means: if you keep on postponing a task again and again, you are not the right person for the job. And even if that task kinda sucks, and you don’t want to dump that onto someone else in the team, the simple act of changing hands might give the other person a little boost of motivation to do the task. Ask around for help!
Truth #6: if someone looks overwhelmed in the charts, just assume they are
What it means: with the different charts we have, and the Team Pulse tool, we now have a pretty good understanding of the team’s workload. If someone looks busy, they probably are, or at least they struggle to clean things up. So even if their calendar looks kinda empty, they might still feel overwhelmed.
Truth #7: keep in mind your energy cycles
What it means: you can’t spend all day working on urgent and important tasks. Unless you are a robot, otherwise you’ll head right into burnout. You need to get out of the house, you need to have not super productive but fun meetings with your colleagues, you need to tackle something that isn’t important but you really wanted to get done.
Truth #8: Your mental health is more important than any task (suggested by the team)
What it means: Feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated isn’t just a personal struggle—it affects the whole team. If your workload or the system is making you anxious rather than helping you focus, it’s time to adjust it. Prioritize your well-being first, because no task is worth burning out over. 
Trust the system!
Anything I missed?
Bastien, Asana Expert
i.DO (Asana Partner: Services & Licenses)