Best Practices

Asana features we can’t live without (part deux)

Last week, we shared seven features that make our work day just a little bit sweeter here at Asana HQ. From secret projects to a trick that might raise your IQ, we’re back again to share another round of Asana features we can’t live without! Make sure to tell us about your favorite features in the comments.

Colored tags – Justin K, Marketing

I love colored tags because I look good in pastels… and so do my projects.

Favorites – Andrew, Design

Favorites are my favorite. I don’t have just one favorite thing I’m working on at any given time – but I can keep all my projects at my fingertips with the favorites list. I’ve added the list of designers we’re recruiting, a project full of great ideas to help people get more value out of Asana, the list of things I want to discuss with my manager in our weekly 1:1, and a few more. In case there’s a project I’ve been looking at a lot that hasn’t made it into my favorites yet, I can see the latest few projects I’ve visited in the nearby recents section

Private projects – Kelsey, Marketing

By adjusting the privacy settings, projects can become a great home for your private tasks or private discussion topics between you and a co-worker. I keep a private project titled “Kels” where I keep personal goals and a running list of topics and tasks that are of interest to me. I can add any public task to my private project too, without anyone knowing. Instead of moving personal notes outside of Asana, I have a place that’s for my eyes only :)

Focus Mode – Niranjan, Engineer

Asana takes focus and productivity to a new level for me. Focus mode takes it even higher. I don’t feel like I’m multi-tasking anymore. I can pick one task that I’m set on finishing, hit Tab-X, and fully focus on getting it done.

“Tab+Q”, quick add – Kris K, Engineer

No matter what I’m doing or where I am in the app, I can take 5 seconds to add a task as it pops into my head or surfaces in a discussion by hitting Tab-Q. With quick add, I can easily assign a task to someone, file it away in the right project, give it a due date, and move on with what I was doing. It’s wonderful to not have any real disruption to my flow.

Project templates – Dustin, Co-Founder

Project templates are great for faithfully executing repeatable processes. Every Asana employee benefits from them on their very first day when they get a copy of the on-boarding template. I personally get leverage from them by being able to delegate pieces of our increasingly sophisticated Episode process. By clearing defining each piece of responsibility, I can be confident that everything will get done each cycle.

Inbox – Bella, Engineer

I always look at my Asana Inbox on my phone as I’m taking the elevator up to our office. And just like that, I’m fully caught up and am looped in on any urgent issues I need to address. With Inbox I know that if there is something that needs my attention, it will be in my Inbox feed and I can respond to the task right away. But my absolute favorite is seeing hearts in Inbox – just a bit of positive reinforcement throughout my day :)

Comments – Sam, Product

I couldn’t live without comments because I love hearing ideas and opinions from people across the company. Having everyone’s input in one place–the place where I’m actually prioritizing my work–helps me make more informed decisions and moves us all forward together.

Hypertext “@” – Yevgeniya, Customer Success

Context. Context. Context. Hypertext allows me to quickly reference relevant work, which gives my teammates the context they need to get their work done and connects tasks, projects, and teammates. I also love the fact that I can easily ask someone a question by @’ing them in a comment AND this automatically adds them as a follower of that task. Pure magic!

Find more of our favorite features in our other blog post.

Photo credit: thestyleandbeautydoctor.com

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