How to Use Asana for Project Management – Complete Guide

Asana is one of the best project management tools to help your business keep track of your employees’ tasks while supporting focused communication.

This software helps you and your team stay prepared and organized for future assignments and projects. Now, you can make advanced to-do lists and track and manage various tasks without missing any important details or forgetting a deadline.

Learning how to use Asana might be challenging in the beginning. However, once you have got the trick, you will find it easy to use.

The word “team” here refers to the group of individuals working on a specific project. Begin with the team description and add the individuals involved in that team.

Once the team is created, you can create different sub-teams (for instance, content, graphic design, etc.) with the list of members.

By creating a project in Asana, you can organize a long list of tasks in one place that are related to a specific initiative or goal. Create a content calendar, as it is a good example of a broad project.

Large-scale projects are usually without deadlines. However, the smaller projects that file under this content calendar have measurable deadlines.

You can add individual tasks to multiple projects in Asana. This feature is helpful for projects with mutual dependencies or overlaps.

For instance, it can be useful to link a task to both projects if the progress of the two depends on that task. This way, both teams will have an overview of the progress report, ensuring a smooth project overflow.

Assign the tasks to the relevant person and add a due date to each task and its sub-task. This provides a clear overview of all the to-dos and a breakdown of responsibilities.

Each person assigned can thus see the task in the “My Tasks” section with the appropriate due date and plan their workflow.

Use Asana custom fields to track, save time, and organize tasks. Add a field for any factor that is significant to your workflow, team, or business. This lets individuals have clarity on work happening across the company.

Click the drop-down arrow next to the project name in the header to add fields. Choose from pre-existing fields already used in your organization, or create a new one. For example, task status or the hours required to complete the task can be used as a field.

You can also add tags to your projects and use colors for a better overview, especially when working on different projects simultaneously. This makes it easy to sort and organize the tasks.

Use the Chrome extension for Asana to store web pages directly as tasks. You can immediately add a task from a web page you browse to Asana as a new task. Moreover, you can do this without copying and pasting any links or other information.

Synchronize your Asana with Gmail or Outlook. This converts the received emails directly to Asana tasks without opening any other application.

Forward the email to x@mail.asana.com. Asana will automatically create a task assigned to you with your email mentioned in the description. This saves a lot of time and prevents forgetting to open an email due to the flooded inbox.

Asana integrations make it easy to collaborate on tasks, docs, and projects. It saves the hassle of manually sharing the data and makes the work easier and faster.

Connect Asana with various tools such as Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, or Microsoft Teams to work more efficiently on your tasks.

The top Asana integrations are:

1. Paperform
2. Zapier
3. Everhour
4. Whimsical
5. Salesforce
6. Slack
7. Clockwise
8. Notion
9. Gmail

Divide the projects or individual tasks into sections. With this feature, you can arrange the tasks in accordance with the topics and deadlines.

These sections are also customizable for each project. For example, create sections for different departments such as Marketing, HR, or more. Now, use these sections to store the tasks carried out by each department.

Create your reports easily and quickly through the advanced search feature of Asana. It gives a precise overview of the tasks that need to be done or the ones that are already done. For instance, you can get an overview of the workload of each employee or the tasks that are completed or due within the given date.

Various shortcut keys help to speed up the Asana workflow. The following most common shortcut keys in Asana will help you save a lot of time:

• Use Tab + Q to add a new task
• Use Tab + N to add a new section
• Use Tab + S for adding a sub-task
• Use Tab + D to add a due date
• Use Tab + Z to switch to the “My Tasks” section
• Use Tab + I to switch to the “My Inbox” section
• Use Tab + M for assigning a task to yourself
• Use Tab + Shift + D for merging duplicate tasks

Various shortcut keys help to speed up the Asana workflow. The following most common shortcut keys in Asana will help you save a lot of time:

Out of all the Asana features, one of the most useful is the one with which you can create your own set of custom-saved views. However, this setup takes some time, but once it is done, you will find Asana much easier to use.

Keep your Asana sorted by merging duplicate tasks.

Firstly, identify the similar tasks. Secondly, select one task as the “master task,” as it will contain all the necessary details and attachments. Then, use the merge feature of Asana to transfer the relevant information to the master task and delete the duplicate one.

The “My Tasks” section of Asana allows you to sort or arrange the tasks according to your preferences. It is a private to-do list only visible to the employee.

From here, you can get a quick overview of all your open or due tasks independent of the project. Moreover, you can also organize your personal tasks into today, upcoming and later sections.

Moreover, this feature is great for team collaboration. You can keep all your project or task-related conversations within Asana instead of using email. This conversation can be viewed again later, making communication effective and teamwork productive.

It is very important to update your projects or tasks regularly. It will keep your team members updated on the task status and ongoing progress.

Asana provides the “Set Status” feature, through which you can send and share your updates with all the team members assigned to the project.

Use Asana boards to visualize your workflows. It is very useful for large projects with short deadlines.

Create them for a quick overview of all the tasks and subtasks of projects, including milestones. In this way, all the team members can get to know about the completed and open tasks at a glance while keeping an eye on important goals.

One of the most valuable features of Asana is its time-tracking functionality. With this latest feature, the users can track the time spent on each task.

This time, data is essential for budgeting and forecasting. Moreover, it also supports strategic decision-making on resourcing by improving real-time estimates of project progress.