Asana Guide

Social Tasking

Basics

Asana has a global view: everyone sees almost the exact same view except “private projects or tasks”.
Asana has a flat role structure: none is manager or all are managers. Each can assign tasks to self or others.
Asana has a hierarchical structure of workspace->projects->tasks->comments or organization->teams->projects->tasks->comments.
Asana has a conversation channel per-workspace (all members in the workspace/team); a conversation channel per-project (all members in the same project). Conversation channel is like a list of conversations (like Twitter or Facebook timeline).
Asana is good at managing meta-data (with real data stored in Dropbox, Google Drive etc), tasks, events, and coordination.
Text formatting, https://asana.com/guide/help/fundamentals/text

Basic Terminology

We have a shared workspace “XYZ”, hierarchically organized as workspace->a list of projects (LeftPanel)->a list of tasks (MiddlePanel)->a list of comments (RightPanel). (If registered as a new organization, the hierarchy would be Organization->Teams (Like workspace) ->Projects->Tasks->Comments)
LeftPanel: each workspace consists of a list of projects in the left panel,
MiddlePanel: each project consists of a list of tasks in the middle panel (+ members or followers),
RightPanel: each task consists of title, description, and a list of comments + one assignee + a list of followers in the right panel.
There are also “My Tasks” (assigned + due dates) and “My Inbox” that keeps messages about tasks/projects you are a follower. Their slogan is to replace emails.
The Calendar is pretty handy too.
Such hierarchical organization + “social tasking” interactions (you can follow or like any comment or any projects/tasks) are quite good for collaboration and information sharing.
To cross reference (task, tag, user etc.), use “@” followed by the keyword like on Twitter. After you type something characters/words after “@”, a list will be popped up for you to select from.
When you reply Asana’s message in an email client directly, your message will be automatically posted/appended to the end of the list of comments in that task.

Manage your time and coordinate with your team members (please assign tasks to each other)
Be responsible, responsive, and proactive
Mark a task complete only after you describe what you have done in that task’ comments, meaning not only simply mark it complete but add some descriptive comments to present what you have done, what you have discovered/learned/concluded, or what errors, challenges, and how you fix problems in that task. Don’t waste time on lengthy pointless comments but make efforts to draw conclusions and articulate key points.

Don’t delete others’ projects, tasks, without permission
Don’t mark “complete” for informative tasks/references that are only for sharing information (marking it with “like”/”love”/”heart” to indicate you are done reading is a good practice).