Do you try to keep everything you have to do in your head, or written down on a million sticky notes cluttering your desk?
This was me for so long. Trying to remember everything I needed to do, but inevitably something would fall through the cracks because I either didn’t write it down, or it got lost in the colossal mess on my desk. I really like writing things down, but I finally had to admit to myself that my old system of “organization” was simply no longer working for me.
Being a busy entrepreneur, I always had an idea in my head or something I needed to get done for myself or a client. My head was filling up with stuff to always “remember for later” instead of allowing me to focus solely on what I was doing at the time. Finally, I started putting EVERYTHING in my calendar. Personal appointments, workout classes, client calls, scheduled work time blocks, etc. This significantly helped, but still what to do with the other “tasks” that needed a home so to speak?
One day, I was introduced to Asana and it totally changed my life. It’s quite possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to my business. Here’s 4 reasons why I love Asana and how it can help you stay organized in your business:
Easy project/client breakdown
I love how simple it is to have a project for each client I work with. These projects can be organized in either list view or board view. List view is more task oriented in my opinion, while board view is more visual. I use list view the most and load in all my to-do’s for my clients and then each day work off of my combined “My Tasks” list that Asana compiles for me. In each project, you can then further organized by section and add specific tasks to each section of a project.
Collaboration with others.
If you have a team it is SO simple to add them to your Asana account. You don’t have to worry, if you want to keep certain projects private or even a personal project you can do that as well, but otherwise you can use this to assign tasks to your team members. Asana lets you add up to 15 people with the free version. People can also “follow” a specific task if you want them to stay in the loop of when a project is complete, or any comments/questions about the task. It really simplifies collaboration among your team, or your clients. I also use Asana with a couple clients for approvals and collaboration or certain campaigns or projects.
Recurring Tasks
This is seriously GOLD. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. If you have a task that you do every single day, week or month, or bi-weekly, etc. you can simple set your task to repeat for a certain day(s) and even time if wanted. Once you check it off as done for that week it’ll repopulate with the next day/week’s due date. For example, I have a weekly task to remind me when to write these blog posts, and weekly recurring tasks for my VA to schedule them to my social channels. I love that I can just add it once and be done and don’t have to worry about re-adding it to my to-do list weekly.
Document your processes/create templates
Creating and documenting processes can be annoying and frustrating. Especially when people don’t follow them, or they get misconstrued. I love creating templates in Asana that I can customize for each specific thing such as onboarding a new client or team member, or a process for content creation and approvals, or a detailed launch strategy. You can also lock down your templates so no one can alter them by mistake.
There’s so many other reasons why I love Asana, for one, it’s FREE. Sure there’s a paid version, but I’m telling you that you really don’t NEED it. I can still do everything I need to do successfully with the free version. The timeline and forms options are only available in premium, which the timeline feature does intrigue me because currently I create those in Excel. So if you want to upgrade, you absolutely can and you’ll get even more features.
You can also color code EVERYTHING, which being super Type A, I love that! It integrates with SO many other programs such as Slack, Google Drive, Toggl, etc., sends daily “to-do” emails, allows me to see my tasks at a glance for the day, gives you multiple workspaces per client, etc. I’m clearly a bit obsessed, but for good reasons! Feel free to send me an email at Katelyn@Katelyhehamilton.com, or connect with me on Instagram or Facebook with any questions! Also, I’d love to hear from you if you love it as much as I do!
If you haven’t checked out my latest FREE offer, the Get Your SH!T Together Strategy Workbook, you need to head here to get it NOW. It’s the exact process I walk my clients through to help them determine what automations they need in their business to achieve their short and long term goals, and ultimately grow their business.
Katelyn Hamilton is an Online Business Manager and Get Your Sh!t Together Strategist. She helps busy entrepreneurs organize, strategize and prioritize their business to go from overwhelmed to out-in-front.
After spending 6 years in the corporate world working with multimillion dollar companies, top-rated chefs and celebrities, she launched her own business to find more flexibility and freedom. She matched her corporate salary in just one year of starting her business.
Katelyn is also a soon-to-be wife, stepmom, dog mama of two furry friends, fitness lover, sports fanatic (Go Dawgs) and dreams of living at the beach.
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