WordPress Freelancers: Make a Custom Asana Project Task List Using Your Written Proposal or Contract

Well, I wasn’t supposed to become a WordPress freelancer, but that’s what has been available lately. Perhaps it is a blessing and this is actually the pace I should be moving while doing my web developement studies… But to keep things moving smoothly, I’ve been using Asana to keep my projects organized — it’s free and simple!

I was introduced to Asana last year during my internship, but once that gig was over, I just had this useless app on my phone. In the current Android app (ver 6.21.2) there didn’t seem to be any way to change my workspace or organization.

So Asana languished on my phone for a bit, teetering on the brink of uninstallment, when I came across this thoughtful blog post by Josh Hrach, encouraging use of Asana for side projects.

I had to switch to the desktop site to add a new workspace (pictured below). Clicking on my top-right profile photo then clicking “More” and “Create new workspace” did it nicely.

But then when you need a new project task list and you are kinda lacking in the skrilla department for a premium template, you have to make your own. A task in and of itself!

Paper and Oats has a lovely blog post on how to do this, complete with a downloadable PDF task list. The post has aged quite well! But if you don’t need a huge, agency-sized task list (their items included “customer gift”,) you can use any old text list.

You already have a list — your deliverables, or even a paper to-do list! Just open a blank text file and copy-paste all the milestones/deliverables from your client service agreement, project proposal, or project contract. If you don’t have one, forget about Asana; go fill out one of these templates —

http://agreement.superfriend.ly/
https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/web-design-proposal-template/

Once you have the major deliverables listed up, copy everything and Add new project in Asana’s left sidebar, choosing a Blank project template. Name it whatever you want…

Click “Create project”.

Now click the blue “Add task” button and DON’T DO ANYTHING ELSE! Just click Add task, and then use CTRL-V to paste your clipboard contents (or CMD-V). Asana will make your text into separate tasks. Don’t worry if any popups appear, just paste.

If you mess up like I did, just go back and erase with TAB+BACKSPACE keys, or click to delete inside the popup dialog. Then paste again. Press ENTER on your keyboard and CTRL-V again to add more tasks.

But wait — don’t forget to set time goals for each task by adding Due dates. That’s it for a simple Asana project!