If I were a supervillain in a movie, and the hero of the story wanted to destroy the source of my power all they’d have to do is delete my Asana account. I use Asana for literally everything, across my various businesses and my personal life.  As a self-appointed queen of systems and operations, I have tried most project management systems, but I am 100% committed to Asana. I’ve spent years honing my boards and I’m pretty sure I’ve nailed it. 

The problem is that simply recommending Asana on its own isn’t enough. There are few things as intimidating as a blank page, and Asana’s is particularly overwhelming.

Where do you start?

What do you use it for?

How do you get to the point where it is more than just a list of shit you need to do?

Sure, I could sit smugly on this system, but I am nothing if not generous and I’d love to share my secrets to organisation with other business owners. 

I use Asana’s different levels to help keep things organised

The way Asana works is that on the top level, you have a variety of different “Teams”. I have one of these for each of my different businesses, one for Clients, one for Products and Courses, and so on. I can then invite the people that need access to these, such as my VAs, clients and freelancers. That way, everyone can see only what they need to see – keeping it the confidential things private, and meaning that my team members aren’t getting overwhelmed with seeing everything, just what things are relevant to them.

On the level under this, sits various projects. These all have different layouts, depending on their function. For example, I like to have a calendar showing the plans for each business, so I can stagger launches, and block out dates for holidays, etc. This is a really visual way to see what I’ve got coming up, but at the same time, I like to keep my Asana flexible. Sometimes life gets in the way, or plans change and it’s important that I can just drag and drop them into the next month and keep going. 

I make sure that each business page has a board for goals, whether that be financial metrics, course launches or social followers.

I keep track of my million-and-one new ideas in Asana

I’m someone who seems to be getting a new idea every day, and if I don’t record them somewhere, I’ll either end up totally forgetting about them, or not being able to focus on anything else. I’ve found that if I jot them down as soon as they pop into my head, I can make space for my daily work, and come back to the other ideas periodically. I then move them into different areas – for example, ideas that I want to execute immediately, things that I want to do eventually, or things that need more planning and fleshing out before I can act on them. I love having a space for my ideas that isn’t just scribbled on napkins, or on my notes app on my phone. 

I add individual tasks to each board, so that when I log in, I can see a clear list of tasks, and when they are due to help me manage my workload. I have so much going on at once that without this function, my brain would just implode. It also means that I can allocate tasks to my team, and they can do the same. Rather than having to dig through projects to see what they need to do, or feeling overwhelmed by a master todo list, this allows them to see exactly what tasks they need to complete, and when the due date is.

The recurring tasks feature cuts down on admin

It’s also fantastic for repurposing things across my various businesses. There are some tasks, or content that can be utilised more than once, and rather than doing twice (or thrice!) the work in repeating it, I can just set it up to be copied across on the other project boards. 

For tasks that are repeated regularly, for example the arduous weekly task of recording my stats, I can set it up to automatically create a task for the VA that deals with that, so that it will always show up in her task list when it is due. 

So that’s tasks and planning, but Asana houses so much more than that. 

Asana is my Business HQ…for all businesses

It really is my business HQ – with everything from hex codes and logos for my various brands, to regularly used templates and important links. The idea is that everything I need in order to do my job is readily available in one place, and I’m not wasting precious time going between Google Drive, Canva and the depths of my emails to find something specific. 

It hasn’t just become this useful overnight. I’ve spent a long time trying different techniques, making changes and seeing what works for me. It really is a living, breathing system that is regularly evolving. 

Luckily, you don’t have to start from scratch – you can grab the exact templates I use in my Asana account here.

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