Asana for Productivity: A Review

I recently started using Asana, a relatively new web application, to manage my tasks, projects, and productivity. I was surprised to discover that its open launch was just in November of 2011, around the same time I started using it.

Adding tasks in Asana is REALLY fast and simple. I click a field and BOOM – I can fill in info. I also like the click-and-drag interface. I receive email updates for all my tasks that are scheduled for today, so I have no excuse for forgetting anything. They also recently added calendar syncing capabilities, so soon I’ll be able to see all of my tasks in one place on my phone or Google calendar.

Asana seems to work very well so far, but it is definitely not perfect. Other users have complained about the fact that you can’t sort tasks by due date now, and that’s obviously a feature that people would find useful. In the meantime, I am selecting and dragging my tasks in batches and individually to arrange them by date.

Image by Cappellmeister via Flickr

I would also like the option to view all my tasks for the day in one glance, instead of clicking from project section to project section (individual tasks are grouped by whatever project you assign them to). However, I also think that segmenting them by project keeps me from jumping around from one project to the next too quickly. This may actually make me more productive in the long run.

One reason I’m sticking with Asana regardless of its imperfections is the company’s apparent responsiveness to feature suggestions from the user community. Right now it’s the best tool for my purposes that I’ve found, and I feel confident that they will continue to improve upon it.

I use Asana for my own personal projects, but the program is made to optimize group collaboration as well. I’m sure I’ll be using it in the future for any projects that require external input and partners.