Create your first project
After creating a few tasks, you might realize some of them are connected to similar work. Now you can group them together in a project. If you are the first person from your organization to use Asana, we recommend inviting two or three teammates who are also stakeholders on a project so you can work on it together in Asana. If your team already uses Asana, explore existing projects by taking a look in the sidebar.
Where do projects fit in?
Projects live within teams, and store tasks. There are lots of reasons to create a project: to track bigger initiatives that may include multiple stakeholders or complex workflows, to plan and achieve your team’s goals, stick to a deadline, or even to organize your ideas.
Set up a project
Projects in Asana are flexible enough for a variety of uses, so the possibilities are almost limitless. If you need some ideas, check out one of the general workflows below:
You can also try out an Asana-created template to see what a built out project looks like, then customize it for your own use.
Here’s a basic framework to create a project:
1. Create and name your project
Click the + button in the top bar. Choose between list or board layout for your project to organize your work in an itemized list or like sticky notes across columns. Next, give your project a descriptive and goal-oriented name, like “Launch website” or “Q2 Customer appreciation event.”
2. Describe your goals
State and briefly describe your project goals in the project description. Select a project due date in Progress View so everyone has clarity on the purpose and plan for the project, and knows when it needs to be completed.
3. Add tasks and sections to the project.
Create a task for each major milestone or piece of work that will help you complete your project goals. Give each task a due date so everything gets done on time.
Just press enter in the List or Board View of a project to add tasks, and use the keyboard shortcut
Tab-Dto add a due date.
Group your tasks by adding sections (List View) or columns (Board View). You create a section the same way you would a task, but just add a colon at the end of the task name. For columns in board projects, just click Add column.
4. Add project members
Invite a few stakeholders as project members so you can begin to see who’s doing what by when and track it all in Asana. Project members can receive various levels of notifications on activity in the project depending on how involved they want to be.
5. Start a project conversation
As you start creating projects, you might realize that some comments and questions on tasks (or in general) are valuable for everybody on the project to discuss. You can start a project conversation to generate a discussion amongst teammates. That way, you can avoid convoluted email threads and still get valuable feedback.
6. Track your status
Projects are a great way to organize your work, and with Progress View, you can post weekly status updates to let your team know how work in the project is going. There’s also a task completion graph that shows the project due date to make sure you’re on track to hit your goal.
Add more projects to Asana
Once you’ve created your first project, you might want to explore other ways to use projects in Asana. Whether you’re the first person here, or a new user in an existing team, you can learn valuable ways to use Asana. We’ll cover them in more detail as you move through the Guide.
Follow along with How to Asana
Prefer a video? Get started with your first project by following along with our tips in How to Asana.
Now that you’ve hit the ground running, invite a few teammates to get going in Asana, or start collaborating with who’s already there.
