Asana: Where work connects 4+

Product wise I love Asana. I have to manage multiple different clients so I was in a hustle to find something that could work for me. I tried a couple other programs and just didn’t like them. I have a routine down with Asana and really helps me keep on track of things. Plus, when I get a team it’ll be nice to scale.

The reason I subtracted a star is for their sales tactics. When showing you the prices they show you a price per seat. After going to check out you realize multiple things. First that price is the annual price, you have to pay more for monthly. Second they automatically put you with 5 seats which might trick people into thinking you have to do 5, but you have to go in and edit it to two seats. That’s the next problem, you can’t do only one seat. Even if there is one of you. You have to pay for two. All of this was very frustrating when I was deciding to pull the trigger and purchase the product. To top it off I contacted their sales chat and asked for a human. The bot prompted me a few questions then asked how many people were on my team. I answered less than 15 and the bot gave me FAQ’s then turned off the chat. A clear sign that they don’t care about you if you’re a small business.

If that were fixed I’d give it a 5. I recommended them to a few people, but unfortunately I had to warn them after that portion. If they just changed that it would be awesome!

I was searching for the perfect task list / project management software to help me and my incredibly short attention span gain an ounce of organization. I needed it to synchronize with multiple devices. I needed it to keep my projects and clients separate, but also needed it to be able to link them if needed. I had to be able to upload files and link them to the projects and clients. I needed to keep notes and comments on each project to keep up with conversations that span emails and various other forms of messaging despite my pleas to stick to email. I found all of that with Asana. Now, I don’t have to remember every detail because I can just take notes freely that are linked to my color coded, time stamped task.

It’s a fantastic app and one of the first and last I open daily. My only gripe with it is my inability to work with it on my iPad while I’m on the move since I couldn’t afford the model with cell data. It works when already connected and lost connection, but not if you freshly open the app without being connected. If that little issue is resolved then I have no reason to give this less than 5 stars.

Even at the free level, it’s a great app.

I don’t find this app to be very intuitive in design. I find myself wasting time by looking for simple functions, such as setting privacy. I expected more transparency in settings and more fluidity in project management - based on the sample pictures here. Maybe it is more simple to use than it seems at first glance, but I found the setup to be confusing, possibly because it’s geared more for teams. I’m a Solopreneur so I have no team to share projects with. Therefore, constantly seeing prompts to invite team members or to share a project or to even have a project set to “public,” just makes no sense for me. It can be a little defeating and overwhelming to be consistently reminded that everything is a solo activity. I think it’s an awesome team app option that is free and ..for anyone who wants to take a little time learning how to access the mobile app functions or better personalize the project tasks, it is most likely a winner. But solo artists and entrepreneurs should keep looking. This is why I am more neutral with a 3 star rating. It’s not a bad app, it’s just not feature rich or intuitive enough for my needs. To clarify, I’m looking for quick and easy note taking and brain dump features in a clean and intuitive app layout that features project management through fast and easy task organization. If it takes too long to fumble for settings then I’ve already forgotten what I opened the app for.