How Asana Uses Asana: Boosting personal productivity

You might think that after using Asana all day long at work, we revel in the opportunity to unplug from the platform during our free time. But Asana doesn’t just help us manage our work at the office, many of us use it for our own personal projects, errands, and goals too. Check out how seven Asanas are realizing major efficiency and happiness gains by using Asana for everything from marathon training to planning a family vacation.

Creating a memorable dinner experience with friends

“Most of my best memories involve my favorite people around a table with great food. I regularly use Asana to plan dinner parties, and it’s even helped me launch a private dinner series for friends and family called Rooted. Every month I use my Rooted template to manage the process of preparing a 3-hour, 5-course meal. It helps me track guest invites, food allergies and restrictions, menu development, and my shopping list.”

— Mark Arnoldy, Head of Customer Success

Managing multiple errand runs

“Since becoming parents, my partner and I have had to optimize how we run errands given how little free time we have. Asana helps us track what we need from our most frequently visited stores so that when one of us walks by a Safeway we know exactly what to pick up.”

— Oliver Jay (OJ), Head of Global Sales

Training to hike a mountain

“In my journey to become stronger and more fit, I recently set a goal to hike Gros Piton in St. Lucia in May 2020. I created a portfolio in Asana to help me track my progress, complete with milestones, a vision board, and a dream team of followers who will support me.”

— Jenna Mahina, Administrative Business Partner

Preparing for a vacation

“Planning for a big vacation is a multi-step process for my family. My wife and I have to determine how long we’ll be gone, purchase flights and hotel accommodations, book a rental car, find a cat-sitter, and note whether we need anything special like a gift for a wedding. We found that tracking these actions with custom fields in Asana was the best way to keep everything organized. We also leverage thorough packing lists in Asana to make sure we don’t leave anything behind!”

— Dustin Moskovitz, Co-founder and CEO

Coordinating international travel arrangements

“I love using Asana when planning international travel and group trips. It helps me keep track of everything from hotel reservations to the people I want to visit with, and makes all of my preparation and planning that much easier. To give you an example, I frequently used to forget about ordering international currency from my bank before a big trip. Now, I always do it two weeks in advance because I have a task to keep me accountable. Keeping a centralized log of my travels also makes it easier to reference a past trip and share packing and planning recommendations with friends.”

— Joanna Miller, Learning and Development Lead

Streamlining a morning routine with kids

“My family’s weekday morning routine used to be rough. Getting my two school-aged children fed, dressed, and ready to go was a daily struggle that left all of us feeling annoyed and rushed. I decided to create an Asana project to help us manage it. Now when my kids complete all the tasks in their morning project, they earn $1 to their weekly allowance. It works like a charm and brings much-needed peace of mind to my busy family!”

— Jason Smith, Global Solutions Engineering Lead

Selling a house and planning a move

“As a lifelong list-maker and notebook fan, I fully embraced the ‘Asanafication’ of my family life. We recently tackled a big personal project of simultaneously buying a new home, selling our previous one, and managing a mini remodel at the new place —all while navigating the end of a school year and summer activities. No amount of notebook paper would have kept my husband and I aligned during escrows, loan applications, house move preparation, tile selections, or camp schedules. Instead we spun up a detailed Asana project, split up tasks, and watched the unicorns fly. Asana absolutely helped us share responsibilities and keep track of what we needed to do by when, all in one place and in real time. Next up: Vacation planning!”

— Stephanie Hess, Head of Global Communications and Corporate Marketing

Curious about using Asana to manage your personal and professional projects? Get organized with a free 30-day trial of Asana Premium today.