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Create tasks in Asana

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Tasks are the building blocks of work in Asana. They help you break down projects into actionable steps and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Whether you're managing a simple to-do list or coordinating complex workflows, creating tasks effectively is essential for staying organized and productive.

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Creating a task

You can create a task in three different ways:

  • From the + Create button in the top bar
  • Via the + Add task button in a project
  • Clicking + next to the section

Task details

  1. Task name: Write clear, specific task names that explain what needs to be done. Instead of "Meeting," use "Prepare agenda for quarterly planning meeting."
  2. Assignee: Every task should have an assignee—the person responsible for completing the work. You can assign tasks to yourself or team members. Click the Assignee field and type the name of the person who should complete the task. Learn more about assigning tasks in Asana.
  3. Description: Use the description field to provide context, requirements, or instructions. This helps the assignee and collaborators understand exactly what's expected. You can add images, charts, or videos for context.
  4. Due date:  Set realistic due dates to help prioritize work and meet deadlines. You can also add start dates. Click the calendar icon to set a due date.
  5. Add collaborators: If other members of your team need to know about the task, add them to keep them in the loop.
Note iconNote

If a due date needs to be changed, it’s best practice to comment on the task and @mention the person who assigned it to let them know why the due date has been pushed back. If you assign tasks to yourself, give them a due date to increase productivity.

Create a subtask

If you’re working on a larger project, you may need to break tasks down even further. For example, if your task is “Publish weekly blog post,” you can create subtasks such as: 

  1. Deliver draft
  2. Approve draft
  3. Publish

Each subtask can have a different assignee and due date, making it easy to pull in multiple collaborators and sequence tasks. Learn about subtasks.

Add a task to a project

If you already have a project, you can keep adding tasks to it to move work along. Simply open your project and click the Add task button at the top. Here are a few ways to use tasks effectively within an Asana project.

Milestones:  Add milestones to your project to shape your timeline and ensure teams are working towards the same checkpoints. 

Approvals: If you need to get feedback or sign off on a task, mark it as an approval task and your assignee will be given the option to approve, request changes, or reject.

Multi-homing is a powerful feature that allows a single task to live in multiple projects at once, eliminating duplication of effort and siloed work. For example, your Finance and Legal teams may need to work on the same task but track it in two different projects. The task with all of its comments and updates can live in both.

Completing tasks

Don’t be afraid to click Mark complete. If you think the work is done, complete the task; the task can be reopened if more work is necessary. Completing a task doesn’t delete the task or remove it from your project.

Depending on how the project filters are set, a completed task might not appear for you anymore, but it’s easy to find it again if needed. Set your filter to Completed tasks or remove the filter altogether, and you’ll see completed tasks again.

Task collaborators will receive an inbox notification when you complete a task. They might like the notification, send you an appreciation or a comment, or if they think there’s more to cover, they can reopen the task by clicking ✓ Completed in the task pane.

Examples of tasks

Context

Task title

Action

You need someone to complete a specific action.

Publish blog post

Assign this task to the person responsible for publishing the blog post. The task’s due date would be the date the post goes live.

You need to delegate and distribute work.

Perform market research

Create a parent task and add subtasks, assigning them to various colleagues responsible for conducting market research in different areas.

You want to receive feedback from different stakeholders.

Finalize campaign messaging

Add the stakeholders as task collaborators and ask them to provide feedback.

Additional resources

Note iconNote

Need help creating tasks? Ask the Community.

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How to create and manage tasks | Asana Help Center