One of the key challenges you face as a writer is how to organize all the small tasks so that the big goals can be achieved. This can be especially tricky if you are self-publishing and working on managing an editor, graphic designer, marketer, etc. or running your own blogging business. What you need is the right tool, and Asana is a work management platform that can help. This Asana 101 training will give you an overview of what Asana can do and how to get started.
Basics of Asana
As a writer, assigning and tracking all of the small tasks that you need to manage to achieve your big goals is challenging. If you are working within a team, you want to make sure your team members are working on tasks that will contribute to the big picture and not just staying busy. Here’s the good news though, Asana makes it easy to:
- Track tasks and projects in a single location
- Use color coding for projects so that they stand out
- Manage project access and notifications
- Trask tasks so that you can see an overview of progress
- Create workspaces for team collaboration
- Integrate team deadlines with your own.
As you can see, Asana is an excellent way to make sure that you are moving the needle on big projects and goals. Learning to use Asana is easy and you can get it set up quickly. Plus, learning Asana skills is intuitive for beginners. If you have a background involving project management, then you are probably already familiar with many of the tools and concepts that Asana uses. Let’s jump into some basic training on how to use Asana.
Asana 101 training: Create projects and tasks
When starting a large project, it can seem like a daunting task with so many small items to do. That is why the basic unit in Asana is the task. Tasks are grouped into larger projects. A project is simply a series of tasks that need to be done to achieve that goal.
Asana gives you a single place and a powerful system for managing those tasks that is much easier than Post-It notes on the wall. Besides, Post-It notes no longer work in the world of remote teams! Let’s take a look at the basic step by step project setup.
Creating a project
1. Sign up for an account.
The first thing you need to do is to sign up for an account.
2. Create your first project.
Now, on your Asana dashboard, the first thing that you need to do is to create a project. To begin, click on the red plus sign in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Fill in the information.
Next, you just fill in the information on the screen. You give the project a name and decide whether you want to view the project as a list or as a Kanban board. You can then assign privacy settings for the project.
4. Create project.
Once this is complete, all you have to do is to click “Create Project”, and you are ready to get started with adding tasks and assigning them.
Creating a team: Asana 101 Training
In Asana, a team can be created where members work on a single project or multiple projects at the same time. Once a project is created, you go to the plus sign at the top of the page and type the email of the team member you want to add. Asana allows you to control settings, such as access and administrative rights to each team member.
You can also invite new team members or add guests at the bottom of the page. Guests can view tasks and projects. While team members are like your coworkers, guests are like the public. Guests can only see projects and tasks if you make them public or share them. Under “Manage Member Notifications”, you can select who will receive status updates, be able to see conversations and create tasks.
Once a project has been created and team members have been assigned, you can color code the project so that you can track it more easily. To do this, go to the drop-down menu for the project and choose, “Set Highlight Color.” You can set the color for the entire team with just one click.
Adding tasks and assigning them
Asana organizes all of your projects by tasks. Everything you post within Asana is actually a “task” that you assign can assign to a project or person.
Asana allows you to use a color-coding system to check the status of tasks within a project. It uses green, yellow, and red to let you know if you are on track or if you need to intervene to get things moving.
Asana also allows you to make checklists. This looks like subtasks within a task with due dates and tasks that you can assign to multiple team members.
In addition, Asana also allows you to create sections to organize tasks. You can organize them by project phases and progress status. Any task can be transformed into a section by adding a colon to the end of the task. Decide you don’t want a section? Removing the colon will transform your section back into a task.
Features beyond tasks
As you can see from this Asana 101 Training, one of the main advantages of Asana is the ability to save time by organizing and tracking projects. In addition, it is an easy way to automate content marketing tasks so that everything gets done when it needs to be. Asana makes things even easier by including templates for onboarding, goals, milestones, event planners, and meeting agendas. This helps you get new projects set up quickly, plus it gives you a uniform system for achieving every goal.
Another useful feature within Asana is the ability to start and manage team conversations with members. To do this, you will find a section marked “Team Conversations” in the sidebar. It works similarly to an internal email. With this feature, you can tag other people using an @ sign, attach a file, or add a new task.
Summing up Asana basic features
The ability to add a new task in any view is one of the best features of Asana. You can manage all your projects from a single place. Plus Asana is designed so that you do not have to do extensive clicking around to “achieve” what you need to do. So far we’ve looked at the essential features of the Asana project management system. Now let’s explore the difference between the free and premium versions so you can decide which one is right for you.
Premium features
Asana offers four levels of services. The Basic membership allows you to access all of the basic features of Asana and manage a team of up to 15 members. This can be an excellent way to get started. The best part about Asana is that it is scalable. As your business grows, you can upgrade your plan without having to start over.
But wait, there’s more! Asana also includes a calendar to help you track your goals and tasks. You can view project due dates by team members, and you can see which team members belong to different projects. The Team Calendar view allows you to view the calendar by team or by project.
When you are using the calendar view, changing the deadline of certain tasks is as easy as dragging and dropping it to a new date. You can also mark the task complete with a checkbox. To add a task to a certain day, double click on a due date, and a new task pane will pop up.
Premium plans can help you manage multiple projects and develop bigger teams through adding custom fields to your tasks. Business and Enterprise plans allow you more customization, portfolios, custom rules, and much more.
In Conclusion
Does this seem like too much information? Do you need more explanations? Asana provides free webinars through Asana Academy to help you quickly learn to use the basic and advanced features of the software.
This Asana 101 training has covered the basics of how to get started. Asana is powerful project management software that can help you achieve your goals. It is motivating to see your projects being accomplished and milestones being reached. Whether you are running a blog or launching your own book, setting up a website, or producing a podcast, Asana is a valuable tool.
