Today I Learned (TIL)

Welcome to the Today I Learned (TIL) thread. Tell us what you learned about Asana today! :tada:

8 Likes

I think this is a great idea for a new thread. I would imagine lots of practical applications are going to come out of this.

3 Likes

Iā€™ll jump in with something I posted in another thread yesterday. I had no idea you could drag tasks directly from one project to another project in the sidebar. I knew about copying and multi-homing, but dragging is so much simpler. :+1:

8 Likes

TIL that you can view all existing tags by pressing the space bar once and then pressing backspace. Thanks again @Ed_Johnson!

12 Likes

Great find! Thanks for sharing it!

1 Like

Not really today - but very recently I learned that searching for tasks that are assigned to nobody or to ā€œnot meā€ is possible but using the advanced search and using the search terms Nobody or Not me in the Assigned To Field.


9 Likes

My best trick: put a due date on task and push them to Later. This way, they disappear, and thanks to task auto-promotion, they come back automatically to Upcoming then Today. Great way to clean up your Asana and your mind!

15 Likes

That you can add start dates and have durations for tasks. The task duration does not show up on calendar view though, which would be super helpful for resource planning. :grinning:

3 Likes

Do you do this as a custom field?

Are you using Instagantt to do that? I created a Start Date custom field, which is helpful. There is no date type, so unfortunately itā€™s just text.

@Jake_Forsland and @Brian_Titus Maybe this is a premium feature or a new feature. I donā€™t know. I donā€™t recall seeing it before, but date range is now an option in the date field.

10 Likes

whoah!!! youā€™re right! thatā€™s amazing.

2 Likes

@Alexis Is this a new feature?

And, we need to be able to search/filter on ā€œstart dateā€ in advanced search! One thing my team finds tricky about Asana is that itā€™s sometimes hard to know when it is time for them to actually begin the task.

As a PM, it would also be nice to be able to create a daily snapshot that shows what tasks are starting or are currently ā€˜in progress.ā€™ Having a start date that could be searched and filtered would be extremely helpful!

2 Likes

It is a feature thatā€™s currently in beta and not available for everyone yet. Weā€™re excited for the enthusiasm and feedback, and weā€™ll pass along your suggestions as the team continues to work on it.

@Brian_Titus You could also try a ā€œStatusā€ custom field that folks could update when they start on something, which would allow you to filter for tasks ā€œin progressā€.

4 Likes

Thanks Kaitie, we are already using a status field with ā€˜waitingā€™ ā€˜in progressā€™ and ā€˜on holdā€™ in pretty much that way. Right now, I still have people very much focused on their daily task sheet, so it would be nice to be able to see not only whatā€™s due today, but whatā€™s starting today.

Will look for the continued development of this feature. Iā€™m happy to give any feedback or input on it!

1 Like

TIL you can reorder the projects in your list of projects at the left side of the screen. I donā€™t know why I didnā€™t figure this out until today, but the UX didnā€™t seem to indicate that it was possible. However, if you just click and drag, a small underline does appear where your project will be moved to. Now I need to figure out if this is a personalization or if it changes for everyoneā€¦

3 Likes

I canā€™t think of anything new Iā€™ve learned, but hereā€™s something pretty cool I did in Asana with a clientā€¦

5 Likes

TIL even experts need reminders on communication best practices. Having conversations on tasks and in projects is a great way to keep a single source of truth for work, but sometimes teammates need a gentle reminder to keep things tracked there.

2 Likes

Along the same lines as Kaitieā€™s commentā€¦

TIL team Conversations and Status Updates in Asana can be a life saver (work saver?) for keeping people on the same page when they work at remote offices. Sometimes what feels like over-communication can actually be just the right amount!