Everyone has their own style of managing how they work. Some have notebooks, some have online tasks lists and some have sticky notes all over their desk. I've tried various methods but about 3 years ago I got addicted to Asana.
Managing Yourself
I used to love notebooks. The art of hand-writing my list and crossing things out felt good. I could visualize my completion of tasks and projects. But..I started to lose track of things, specifically ideas. I had words circled on random pages, people and contact details scattered throughout and aside from daily lists, there was no rhyme or reason to the chaos it eventually became.
Every Sunday, I go into Asana and click through every project. For me, I have them color-coded and categorized by client. When I was in-house, I would categorize them by marketing campaign or type of program.
Within each project I look at what I have listed and adjust the dates based upon any time constraints, update my notes and add new ideas. By having a visual of my tasks that I am assigning to myself each day for the upcoming week, I can see very quickly if I am going to meet deadlines or need to move some things around.
Managing Your Team
Right now I am on the free version of Asana that is for 1 user but I have worked on large marketing teams where we had over 50 people in Asana.
For managing your team and the people on your organization who are supporting you in different areas of a marketing campaign or lead generation program, you have the ability to assign tasks to that person and provide notes pertaining to the task. You can also set dependencies where you know you can't start your task until another task is complete.
Having the ability to see what your team members have on their plates is also helpful when you have in-house designers or content writers who are being pulled in many directions. You don't want to impose due dates that just can't be met because they are working on something else.
Managing Outside Consultants and Freelancers
Within Asana, you can also create users for people outside of your organization. Consider your public relations agency, your social media freelancer, a writer, etc. This becomes an easy way to assign tasks and exchange notes all in one place.
TIP: Asana may not work for everyone and I have seen this happen. Always be cautious when it comes to enforcing a system for people to manage themselves and each other.
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