If you’ve been using Asana for any length of time, you know that opening up your My Tasks can sometimes feel like staring into the abyss. You’re looking at a massive, unorganized list of everything ever assigned to you—tasks due today mixed with tasks due this week, next month and quite possibly (hopefully not) last month. Information overload is a real thing. Our brains feel overwhelmed when we look at chunks of 10 or more tasks at once. It’s cluttered, makes it nearly impossible to focus on what matters right now, and can make us want to just shut it down and go home.

If that’s you, this post is going to make your day. With a few simple tweaks and some automation magic, you can transform Asana’s My Tasks from a chaotic mess into your personal command center for personal productivity.

I’ve created a video tutorial that will walk you through exactly how to set this up. Whether you’re using Asana’s Free or Starter tier (or you’re a guest in someone else’s workspace), or you’re rocking the Advanced or Enterprise plans, I’ve got you covered. The concepts are the same, but the implementation differs slightly based on which features you have access to.

Important note: This post and video is your foundation for setting up My Tasks. In a future post, I’ll dive deeper into advanced strategies—handling overdue tasks, working with dependencies, leveraging start dates, and more. I will also be addressing individuals who don’t manage tasks by Due Date—stay tuned! But watch these videos first to get your basic system in place!

Four Team-Wide Best Practices

Before we organize your Asana My Tasks, establish these team-wide practices to ensure everyone is setting everyone else up for success. Like a shared team kitchen, if we don’t all agree to clean up after ourselves and put things where they belong the kitchen will become a mess that nobody will want to use. Similarly, if your team doesn’t follow these practices, My Tasks becomes difficult to manage.

1. Start actionable tasks with a verb — Make it clear what needs to be done. For example, “Prepare presentation” not just “Presentation”.
2. Always assign actionable tasks — Someone needs to own it or it’ll just sit and collect dust. Assign it to someone (or at least assign the first step to someone in a subtask!)
3. Give every actionable task a due date — Otherwise it disappears to the bottom of someone’s list (the abyss).
4. Don’t assign reference tasks to people — Keep “Budget” or “Office supplies” unassigned to avoid clutter.

Check out The 3 Most Important Asana Best Practices and Five Ways To Declutter My Tasks in Asana to dig deeper into these important best practices!

Quick Review of the “How To Use Asana My Tasks” Tutorial

TRIAGING TASKS: In My Tasks, make sure you’re using the LIST view, filter by incomplete tasks, sort by due date and (important) group by Sections. Tip: if some Sections are missing, click the three dots in ‘Group’ and make sure ‘Show empty groups’ is toggled on.

UNDERSTANDING SECTIONS: Following is a quick overview of how I recommend you use each section in My Tasks.

• Recently Assigned — Your mailbox. Empty it daily by triaging tasks to other sections based on due date.
• Due Today — Your personal to-do list for today. Not just tasks due today, but the things you’re choosing to work on today. Your personalized sticky note for today.
• Due Next Week — Tasks due within the next 6-7 days. Look ahead here to pull work forward when needed.
• Due Later — Everything else. Review weekly, but not daily.

DAILY WORKFLOW: Every day, take a few moments to triage your “Recently Assigned” section (empty the mailbox):

• Overdue tasks → “Due Today” (or reschedule)
• Tasks due within a week → “Due Next Week”
• Everything else → “Due Later”

Then pull your priorities from “Due Next Week” into your “Due Today” list.

ASANA AUTOMATION RULES: Without automation, you’d have to manually move tasks from section to section every day as due dates change. Instead, create rules that do this while you sleep. Watch the video (based on the version of Asana you’re using) to learn how to set your Rules effectively. Not sure which version of Asana you’re using? Here’s a quick trick. If you can access Goals or Portfolios, you’re on the Advanced or an Enterprise tier. If not, you’re on the Personal or Starter tier!

Questions about organizing your work in Asana? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.