I am not a fan of clutter. It tends to stress me out and I lose focus. Too much clutter and I can almost physically feel my mental capacity draining out of me like a barrel of water full of holes. I know there are people who actually thrive in those environments, but I just can’t do it very well. I suspect that most people just think better when their world is organized.
Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. A. A. Milne
In Asana, My Tasks is the place where every individual can organize their work. It is a flexible space to allow people to create a to-do system that works best for them. When My Tasks is organized, it is extremely effective in managing, arranging and prioritizing tasks. When it’s cluttered and unorganized, most people just don’t use it at all. If they do, it’s usually stressful and overwhelming.
Following are Five Best Practices to ensure Asana My Tasks is uncluttered and organized for maximum productivity. NOTE: these Best Practices must coincide with The 3 Most Important Asana Best Practices to work optimally.
1. Never Assign Non-Actionable Tasks To A Person
It is very common in a team environment for people to assign what I call a “Reference Task” to a person. Their motivation is usually great. However, if the task isn’t actionable – that is, it doesn’t require someone to do something – it shouldn’t be assigned to ANYONE. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of that assignee and jump over to their My Tasks in Asana. Not only do they have to weed through their actionable tasks, they also have random non-actionable tasks floating around, as well. They shouldn’t be there at all!
IDEAS: If you want to associate a non-actionable, reference task to a person, consider creating a People Custom Field in that project instead. For example, let’s say you have a reference task labelled: Budget. It’s non-actionable, but you want people to know who is in charge of the budget for that project. Create a special custom field/column called “Responsible” and add the appropriate people there, instead. Or just make a note in the Description of the task!
2. Remove Assignees From Tasks in Archived, Old or On-Hold Projects
Another cluttering common conundrum (yeah, try it out loud) happens when tasks are assigned to someone, but the project is no longer active. So now our colleagues are stuck with action items in My Tasks that aren’t real. Have you ever tried to find the right Lego in a pile of hundreds of other wrong Legos? That illustration sums up the problem here. Individuals are constantly trying to judge whether the task is an actual to do or a leftover from another project two years ago.
- ARCHIVED PROJECTS: Most people don’t realize this, but just because you Archive a project doesn’t mean all of the incomplete tasks in that project are archived as well. Nope. So if your co-worker has 23 tasks sitting in that archived project, they are STILL also sitting in their My Tasks! Note: this doesn’t bode well for them if they have a boss who likes to checkup on how many incomplete or overdue tasks they have on their plate!
- Best Practice: Mark tasks ‘complete’ if they were actually completed and remove Assignee’s from all incomplete tasks before archiving a project. I don’t recommend you mark tasks complete that weren’t completed, since that could skew Report and Portfolio statistics down the road.
- OLD PROJECTS: Remember when the team decided to host that staff picnic back in 2020 then covid happened? The project got tabled indefinitely and now it’s just sitting in the Team, taking up space and collecting cobwebs. Oh, and it’s also gumming up someone’s My Tasks!
- Best Practice: Follow the steps above to properly process Assignees then Archive the project!
- ON-HOLD PROJECTS: Some projects are still important. They are collecting cobwebs for a reason. Perhaps a client is dragging their heals or resourcing issues have put the project on-hold. Whatever the reason, everything has come to a screeching halt, for now. The problem of cluttered assignments remains. We need to find a way to remove or modify those tasks so team members don’t have to plow through them every day.
- Idea #1: Depending on the complexity of the project, it might be simplest to remove all Assignees from the project except one (a reminder for the project manager to evaluate project status). When the project becomes active again, reassign tasks.
- Idea #2: If the project is complex, or assignments can’t be removed, then update all Due Dates en-masse. The easiest way to do this is to switch to Timeline View, highlight all remaining tasks in the project and drag them to a new due date. This way assignments remain inactive but won’t get in the way of other important and active tasks.
3. Remove Old Templates Or Switch To Asana Templates
I often see projects sitting inside of a Team with names like, “New Client Onboarding Template” or “Annual Conference Template”. The problem is, these aren’t actual Templates in Asana. They are Projects with the word “Template” in the project name. Back in the day, this is how we created Templates, by naming a project a template and then duplicating it whenever we wanted to fire the template. Today, this is just a flat up “no-no”. Asana has a MUCH smarter Template feature that replacing this old method.
Of course, the problem with keeping these old Template projects is that all of the Assignee’s in the template hold tasks that aren’t real. They are ‘fake template’ tasks sitting there for a rainy day when someone wants to duplicate the template. Another batch of tasks in My Tasks to try to ignore. Messy.
Suggestions:
- Convert the project to an actual Template and delete or archive the old project.
- Delete or archive the project if it’s no longer needed or used.
- Remove the Assignees from the project and rename the project to something like, “New Client Onboarding – Old Template” (then archive it.)
4. Only Use Asana My Tasks For Action
Asana was built to help us collect our thoughts. It’s a glorified “list-maker”. Sometimes, I run across individuals (often executives) who like to use My Tasks as a scratch pad for ideas, brainstorms, reading lists, etc. When my wife sends me to Walmart with a list of things to purchase, it never occurs to me to add my vacation ideas to that same grocery list. I keep the grocery list separate from my other lists. In Asana, My Tasks is your action items list. It’s your massive grocery list of things to do, pick up and accomplish for your organization.
So where do we put all of our ideas for future consideration? I’m glad you asked! Just create a Private Project somewhere in Asana to hold your ideas. Nobody else can see it but you and it allows you to organize your content however you want. For example, I have a project that is dedicated to “Blog Post Ideas” for this website and another one dedicated to ‘Asana Best Practices’. In my personal Asana Workspace I also have lists dedicated to “Books to Read”, “Stuff To Do With Kids” and “Eating & Exercise”.
5. Don’t Go Overboard On Tasks
I enjoy performing Asana Workspace Audit’s for my clients. For whatever reason, I can dig deep and analyze Asana workspaces without getting overwhelmed. That said, please don’t ask me to audit your company’s finances. I just don’t think I can handle the level of minutia involved with making sure every single penny is accounted for! I notice that sometimes well meaning individuals treat an Asana project like an audit. They try to write out every single task, subtask, sub-subtask and beyond within the project. Then they assign those tasks to team members. This can quickly overwhelm and discourage the rest of the team.
For example, I really don’t need detailed instructions to ‘cook a hot dog on the grill’. In fact, pretty much that task covers it. Now, if I were teaching my teenager how to grill a hot dog for the first time, I might break that task down to 2 or 3 steps. However, most of us don’t need: get hot dogs out of fridge, remove from package, place on plate, turn on gas on grill, light grill . . . . . .”
There is an important balance to maintain when creating and assigning tasks.
A Few Recommendations:
- If steps to clarify how to do something are required or desired, add them as subtasks. Carefully consider if it’s enough to have the subtasks as a reference, or if they really need to be assigned to someone.
- If several tasks will always happen at the same time, consider combining them into one task with subtasks or bullets in the description. For example: “Collect Paperwork From New Hire” (with a list/subtasks) works better than the individual tasks: “Collect Signed Tax Form”, “Collect Direct Deposit Form”, “Collect NDA Form”, etc.
- If the task won’t happen at the same time, break it up into multiple tasks or subtasks.
- Give team members a voice into what level of task details work best for them. That said, project managers should still keep in mind that executives may want a certain level of granularity in tasks for reporting purposes.
