Summary

The article outlines how writers can use project management tools like Asana, Airtable, and Trello to efficiently manage multiple writing projects by organizing ideas, tracking submissions, and combating procrastination.

Abstract

The author, a writer, shares their method for maintaining sanity and efficiency while managing numerous writing projects. They emphasize the importance of tracking a multitude of topic ideas, research, deadlines, and correspondence using online project management tools. The article focuses on the use of Asana for cataloging ideas, tracking pitches to publications, and creating task hierarchies to manage complex projects. While the author also praises Airtable for its relational database capabilities, they find Asana to be more nimble for the dynamic nature of tracking writing topics. The article also touches on the ability to assign tasks and receive email notifications to battle procrastination, ensuring that writers stay on top of their assignments and deadlines.

Opinions

The author is an advocate for using Asana due to its flexibility and ability to handle a large number of subtasks, which is crucial for managing writing projects.
Airtable is recognized for its strengths in project management, particularly for editorial calendars and client work, but is considered less agile than Asana for tracking multiple writing topics.
The author values the feature of assigning tasks to individuals, even for solo writers, as it prompts email notifications and helps in following up on story ideas and deadlines.
The article suggests that the ability to have subtasks within subtasks is a key feature for any project management tool used by writers.
The author believes that organizing writing projects with tools like Asana can help writers overcome the challenges of procrastination and forgetfulness.

How to Stay Sane and Efficient Managing Multiple Writing Projects

Project management tools like Asana, Airtable, and Trello can bring writers sanity, efficiency, and productivity

If you’re a writer who’s anything like me, you have dozens, if not hundreds of topic ideas rolling around in your head. Some of them you may never write. But you absolutely plan to write most of them. It is therefore imperative that you track them all. It can be overwhelming because there is so much to track: research, due dates, images, correspondence with interviewees and editors, etc.

I want to share with you how I use the online project management tool Asana to:

Catalog all my topic ideas
Keep track of which publications or websites I’m pitching
Battle against procrastination and forgetfulness

NOTE: You don’t need to use Asana to do what I’m going to show you. The most crucial feature is the ability to have subtasks…

What is Asana?

Asana is one of the most popular online tools for project management. It’s in the same category as platforms like Trello, Monday, Airtable, and Basecamp. Like all of these tools, Asana has a variety of features that allow you to track projects and collaborate with teams. You don’t need to use Asana to do what I’m going to show you. I have no doubt that if you use one of these other tools, you could apply the same techniques. The most crucial feature is the ability to have subtasks and ideally, subtasks within subtasks.

One thing of note: I’m a huge fan of Airtable too. I actually use Airtable as my primary editorial calendar and project tool for my clients. However, I find that for purposes of tracking dozens of topics that are frequently changing, or that have many subtasks, Asana is more nimble, flexible, and fast. I like Airtable for the actual editorial project management because of its relational database abilities (e.g. tracking writers and their assignments and invoices; social copy paired with articles; etc.)

Cataloging my ideas

The most important first step for any writer who has dozens of topic ideas is to get those ideas out of your head…

The Favorites section lists the Projects I frequent the most.

… and onto a piece of paper or your computer. I’ve set up my Asana account so that each project is either a client or some personal project I’m working on (e.g. my satirical memoir.)

For my writing assignments, I’ve created a project called “The Write Stuff.” Asana allows you to create different types of projects: a List, a Board (similar to the index card style of Trello), a Timeline, or Calendar.

I typically create List projects. Once created, all I have to do is type then hit return to add tasks and to-dos.

Track publications, websites, and blogs

In the context of using it to track topics, I have one task for each major publication, blog, or website. For instance, MEDIUM PUBS is one task in my Project The Write Stuff. “Dear Miss No Hookups you’re sending mixed messages” is another topic that I have not assigned to any particular blog or publication yet. Once I do, I’ll drag it drop it to become a subtask.

Then, within each of the main top-level tasks (i.e. the blog or publication), I list the topics as subtasks. Here’s the task record for one of the publications I write for:

Each one of these subtasks can also have their own subtasks. So let’s say there is a list of tasks or to-dos for each of the topics you’re writing (e.g. interview subject, do research, create images, etc.) you can add those as sub-subtasks. You essentially create a Russian doll of subtasks (or an “Inception” of subtasks, if you prefer metaphors of the cinematic variety).

Another great feature is that each top-level task can be assigned to multiple projects. This would be helpful if you’re using each blog or publication as a Project (as opposed to a top-level topic in a Project.) As I mentioned above, I track all the publications and blogs I write for as tasks within my “The Write Stuff” Project. That’s because I’m using Asana for other client and project work. But if you’re just using it for writing, it may behoove you to have publications and blogs as their own Projects. In that way, you could even have topic idea belong to more than one Project. You may want to do that if you have an idea that could fit more than one publication.

Within a task window, click the “+” sign to add that task to another project. Only top-level tasks can be added to more than one project.

Battle procrastination

Lastly, you’ll notice above that you can assign tasks to individuals. This feature was primarily designed for working with a team and you need to assign tasks to specific people. But it’s also a good feature to use even if you’re flying solo. By assigning a task, the Assignee will get an email notification as you get close to the due date.

Here’s the email notification I received for writing this article.

For someone like me, this is a must-have. I need some sort of alert feature to remind me to follow-up with a story idea, or to remind me I had the idea in the first place. If it’s not an idea that needs to be written in a timely manner, just leave the assignee blank, and at some point, you’ll come across it again.

Now that this article is written, that’s one more task to cross off.