Having the right tools at your disposal is a good step in the right direction. However, learning different ways to use each digital solution in your collaboration toolset will save time and improve productivity.

In this article, we'll discuss six lesser-known ways to use Asana, but first:

What Makes Asana Special?

Asana is a well-known project management tool that allows teams to work together as a cohesive unit by helping them track, coordinate and organize work. It's effective because:

• It is a powerful tool full of helpful features users can utilize for a wide range of tasks.
• Although its range of features can be intimidating at first, it is still reasonably easy to get your head around.
• Asana has an internal inbox and other features that allow users to comment on tasks, making it easy for teams to communicate seamlessly.
• You can use Asana to create massive projects to see the big picture. You can then break these projects down into sections, tasks, and subtasks to execute the details, and assign them to other people.
• Asana allows you to sync and integrate other tools for more productivity.

So, what are some different ways to leverage these features?

1. Replace Internal Emails

Emails have played (and are still playing) a central role in many organizations for communication. Although it is a fantastic tool that can still serve you in some instances, you can rethink your strategy to ensure that you do not rely too heavily on emails by exploring other more effective internal communication alternatives.

For example, think about all those times you felt overwhelmed by the number of emails in your inbox. What’s more, some of those emails contained so many individual questions/tasks that pushed you to switch your focus quickly to reply to each of them, draining your productivity in the process. Asana can be a better alternative.

You can break down those 2000-word emails with multiple points into distinct Asana tasks. This way, you, or anyone else, can claim the task, work on it and mark it as complete once you have finished before moving on to the next one.

To further boost your productivity and better organization, you can invite multiple colleagues to take on the tasks and assign deadlines to set priorities.

2. New Hire Onboarding

It takes time for a new employee to completely settle into a new work environment and reach maximum productivity. They often need to go through countless emails to get acquainted with their new surroundings.

However, you can revise your onboarding process using Asana to ensure a smooth transition in less time.

Create a project, and call it “[Employee name] Onboarding Template“. Next, create sections like company policies, how-to tutorials, FAQs, etc. Now, populate each section with all the relevant information and clear instructions that the new employee might need.

You can also invite other experienced colleagues in your workplace to provide feedback, and update your project accordingly. Once you have covered everything, save the project as a template for future use- whenever you have a new hire.

3. Knowledge Sharing

One of the best ways to ensure growth and success in your organization is building on solid foundations like collaboration and knowledge sharing to create cohesive teams that aim to achieve a common goal.

You can create a project on Asana for education to promote the exchange of ideas, skills, and expertise. Team members can use this project to share insightful articles, podcasts, videos, and other relevant educational materials that can be helpful in your organization.

If your workplace has many departments, you can attribute them to a specific section for better organization.

You can also tag specific people using @[name] whenever you share something that is only valuable to them, or for time-sensitive information. Lastly, encourage your colleagues to share and review the resources in this project regularly.

4. Event Planning

Planning any event is always a hectic activity. There are a lot of moving parts that you need to track, and complete. Thankfully, there are lots of event planning software you can use to boost your productivity.

Although Asana is not a conventional event management software, by now, you must have noticed it is pretty versatile, and you can use it for just about anything.

That said, you can start by creating a project for your event, and naming it. If you plan the event with other people, you can invite them to follow up with updates and work on specific tasks. Just as before, you can divide your project into sections, like the budget, promotional plan, and decor, that you will use to add specific and related tasks.

You can assign each task to a specific person, attach relevant files for additional information, and add a due date.

5. Content Calendar

Asana is an excellent tool to manage your blog content production and keep track of due dates.

To start, you can use Asana’s editorial calendar template or create a new project from scratch and divide it into sections you would like to write about, like business, health, productivity, technology, etc. Now, add specific titles under each section, assign them to your content writers, and set a due date.

Alternatively, you can have your writers pitch their ideas, and wait for your approval before they start covering them. You can also use Asana to indicate the content stage, for example, not drafted, in review, published, etc., for more clarity.

6. Brainstorming Ideas

Team brainstorming sessions are effective at promoting knowledge sharing and creative thinking. However, you still need the right tools to empower your teams.

You can create an Asana brainstorm project and give access to all the participants by adding them as project managers. If you plan to discuss different topics during the brainstorming session, you can divide your project into sections.

Now, encourage everyone to add as many ideas as they can as tasks. Once the allotted time for this exercise is over, you can choose the best one or have everyone participate by clicking the thumbs-up within the task that has the best idea.

Asana Is a Productivity Powerhouse

These are only a few unique ways to use Asana. You can incorporate these ideas to boost your productivity, or use them as inspiration to create your Asana projects.

Although it has many features designed for teams, you can also use it for your personal goals.