Meet My Friends: Asana, and Notion

Do you often find yourself opening many tabs on your laptop to access your calendar, idea dumps, current projects, and business plans at the same time? And somewhere between sliding between tabs, you accidentally close one and have to dig it up all over again.

If that’s you, you need a project management tool where everything can go into one place. And no, it’s not your Google Drive. 

As a solopreneur, there are many project management tools out there, each vying to be the perfect solution for your work. I personally vouch for Asana and Notion, each being a one-tab solution to optimize self-organization for my business. 

I use Asana for managing client projects. No more updates lost in an inbox of emails. All our communication regarding a certain project stays in one place, and I can reply to comments from the Asana app, even if I’m not at my desk. Asana also helps me keep track of my content and marketing needs that I outsource to freelancers for my overall marketing plan. 

Here are the best features of Asana that appeal to me as a designer:

VISUALLY-APPEALING

Designer or not, a clean visual work space is crucial to look at before you start on your tasks. Asana has a clean, crisp layout with appealing colours for colour coding categories. No matter how much work you have ahead of you, Asana’s layout and easy navigation make it all feel as calming as a yoga breath. My favourite part? When I complete a task, it lights up and sometimes has a flying unicorn, narwal, seal, or bird to add a sense of jubilation of a job well done. 

TASK-FOCUSED

Even if you’re terrible at technology and figuring out a project management tool, you can’t go wrong with Asana. As soon as you log into the homepage, the ‘Task Due Soon’ section stays at the top of the page. To view the entire list of tasks, ‘My Tasks’ section presents them in a list,  board, or calendar view. I love this feature! Asana understands that some people work best with lists, deadlines, or even sub-tasks in the board view. 

CONVENIENT CONVERSATIONS

Asana allows me to have conversations with my clients and freelancers right within the task itself. No more emails, or having to refer to a certain project when asking questions or getting clarifications. I can even tag people, so all they need to do is click on the comment from their inbox, and it takes them to the task board so they know immediately what the context is. 

Asana is versatile for every type of organizer, making the best plans for the most scatter-brained of us. 

Notion, on the other hand, is for me alone. It’s my hub where I headquarter all my business information, in addition to tracking personal stuff. As a solopreneur, I have a lot of moving parts to my business and Notion allows me to stay on top of everything at once. Notion is fluid with changing plans.

Here are the features about Notion that I love best as a designer:

NESTING 

Notion’s nesting capabilities are a lifesaver when you’ve got pieces of little and big information that are all relevant to one category alone. You can nest pages within pages or a folder. You create a sub page and then drag and drop it into the subject it fits into. This way, I can keep track of my notes from sales calls, master tasks by quarter, operations, finances, business growth, resources, and so much more! 

VARIETY IN FORMATS  

Are you a bullet pointer or check box ticker? Or like seeing your to-dos as images? Seems like a petty preference to have, but some of us planners do have a certain way we like to make our lists. Notion gets this! Whenever you create a new document, press the forward slash key and you get a range of options to format your content. When it comes to lists, you can choose to have a numbered list, a to-do list, a bulleted list, a toggle list. Notion has content formats made for all kinds of creators—callouts in text for writers, tables for the data analysers, gallery views for the visualizers and more. 

TEMPLATES. AND ONE MADE FOR YOU. 

Depending on the industry you’re in, Notion has templates for designers,engineers, students and more. They help with broader outlines of your work but of course, they need a little customization to suit your workflow and needs. However, they don’t have templates for people who run meek but mighty businesses so I’ve come up with one for you. Notion needs a little more fidgeting around than Asana does, so my Notion set up and template download that’s coming out soon will take that worry out so you can get started on your business planning immediately. 

Notion and Asana overlap in a lot of capabilities. However…

Asana helps you manage tasks seamlessly, while Notion is better for data and document collaboration. At the end of the day, one can be substituted for the other, but you may have to opt for the paid version in that case. Asana is free for up to 15 people, while the Notion personal plan is completely free.

I personally use the Notion personal plan, and Asana, friends indeed for my every business need.