In business, balls will get dropped and some details will fall through the cracks. There’s so much going on that it’s inevitable.
You know that feeling of constantly putting out fires? It’s probably all-too-familiar, right?
What if I told you there’s a tool you can use will help keep balls from frequently being dropped, you out of perpetual put-out-fire mode, and easily delegate to your team. Oh, and it’s also free!
It’s not too good to be true.
Like you, I love to be organized, stay on task and feel in control of my day. (I used to develop office organizational products in my former life for gosh sakes! And guess what? One of my designs recently won an industry award. **squee**)
With a team to manage and a business that’s growing, you need something to help keep your ship steering in the right the direction.
Enter Asana!
What’s Asana? An online-based project management tool, that you can use to keep track of tasks, projects, files and conversations, not just for yourself but also for your team and even clients.
The online tool acts as an all-in-one place to organize the ongoings of your business, from recurring admin tasks like the weekly newsletter broadcasts to one-time projects like launching a podcast.
Sometimes emails can get lost in the inbox (or another random folder if you have filters enabled). By having the project planning, task assignments, and conversations on those projects in one place, you eliminate the inbox hunting that can use up too much time and brain space.
Want to look up the different design iterations of your new logo? Pop into the Asana project for your rebrand and view them all out in one spot, instead of sifting through dozens of emails.
You can also enable tasks to recur so that once it is completed, a new task will be auto-generated with a new, future due date. Less thinking, more doing.
Have weekly team meetings that seem to always go significantly off-tangent? Keep the meeting agenda in Asana and efficiently move through the order. Designate a team member to take notes and, and as new tasks come up, have that person add each to Asana and assign them in real-time.
And use it for my favorite method – The Ideas Parking Lot. Ever do a brain dump of ideas onto paper, but then find they don’t go anywhere because you tuck the paper away and forget about it. Input your brain dump into Asana for future planning. As ideas come to fruition, move them into their own project and plan it out from there.
Need to stay organized on the go? There’s an app for that!
Asana is available as an app on iPhone and Android devices. Personally, I don’t use the mobile app much. It’s not because the app isn’t functional because it is. The majority of my screen time happens on the computer, and my iPhone is more like a plain ol’ phone/iPod – voice and text only, plus a steady supply of 80’s jams at the gym.
Interested in taking a project management software for a test drive?
Asana is available at no cost to get started, with the paid version needed for larger organizations (more than 15 members) and if premium features are desired (features like private projects within the same Workspace, custom project templates, assigned project start dates, and priority customer support).
I haven’t found a need for the premium version just yet, so I’m stoked to be able to keep on track at no extra cost.
How do you use Asana, or another project management tool, to keep your team and business organized? Tell me how in the comments below.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash