A Writer’s Guide To Asana

It’s no secret I’ve been obsessed with organization for years. I used to pay a lot of money for Daytimers, and wasted the money because I’d forget to use them.

So when a producer I was working with for a while wanted me to use Asana to plot out a very detailed project we were working on, I was keen to try it.

Asana is a free website that of course has a paid plan that you can use for additional features, and the additional features do seem worth it. The problem is, paying for Dropbox, a website, ProWritingAid, OneDrive, Evernote and other premium services I use, you can nickel and dime yourself to death. Should I start making the big bucks from my writing, then yes, I’ll consider it.

Asana can be used in a linear fashion, or in a Trello style fashion. The linear fashion features a top to bottom structure you can list of tasks to accomplish. You can set deadlines – “write first draft march 1.” “Write second draft April one.” “Forbidden Word edit May 1.”

And since you can set up multiple tasks, you can use one for every novel – setting up every step in your writing and editing process.

The Trello system is what they call a book style – it creates a board, where you set up columns, or lists. I use this system for tracking my novels. I set up lists (columns) for each stage of my writing and editing process, which runs somewhere around 25 distinct steps from initial idea to book release party.

Then you create a card for each novel. They start out in the left most list (remember, that’s a column). As you complete each step, you drag the card from one list to the next. I got this idea from watching Jason Mayfield’s video. I’d always used the linear boards, and so I decided to try the book style board, which essentially is a Trello system. Or maybe Trello is an Asana system, I’m not sure which.

This way I know exactly what point I’m at with every novel, book or screenplay. “Start Novel” turns quickly into “10,000 words” into “20,000 words”, etc. I’m still new to this, so I may remove a list or two, or change their arrangement in the process. But I essentially analyzed my process, created lists for every step, then I created cards for every novel and screenplay.

All twenty four steps, all of the 50 or so novels, books and screenplays. What gets measured gets scheduled, what gets scheduled gets done.

Well, that’s the idea. I still need to go through my office desk to find all of the paperwork for all my projects and get them entered.

You may have less editing steps than I do. You may not even have an idea how to edit! I guarantee you that if you sign up for a free Asana account, create a board called “My Novels”, and start creating lists, it’s going to force you to analyze – “Am I doing this? Am I meaning to, or am I doing this?”

Now you can measure progress. Now you can get it done. This is why I can be in year six or seven of writing and you don’t own any Nicholas S. Reicher novels – I’ve been working and working, and finally realized that if I don’t have something to track progress, I’ll spin wheels forever.

The idea is, when you move your card with a novel’s name all the way to “Write Query letter”, guess what it’s time to do?

Get an agent.

When you move the card to “Get published”, it means… what? It’s time to get published.

By the way, consider showing the Asana app on your phone to your agent-to-be, or invite them to join your Asana to see your progress! It might make the difference between signing and not signing!