Setting Up Asana for Small Business: Automation Rules That Save Time

Episode #134: Setting Up Asana for Small Business: Automation Rules That Save Time

If you’ve ever thought, “There has to be an easier way to keep track of all the things,” you’re right — and Asana is that easier way.

In this episode of Tech Savvy 101: AI & Automation Made Simple, I’m walking you through you how to set up your Asana workspace from scratch with automation in mind. 

We’re diving into how to structure your projects, build out recurring tasks, and use automation rules that actually save you time (instead of just looking pretty on your screen).

This is Part 2 of our Automated Systems That Scale mini-series, where I walk you through the real tools and workflows I recommend to take work off your plate — not add more to it.

Whether you’re managing content, client projects, launches, or even your weekly schedule, you’ll walk away from this episode with the confidence to turn your project management tool into a time-saving system that supports your growth.

✨ NOTE: This episode is part of the Automated Systems That Scale mini-series, where we're exploring how the right project management system can transform your business from manual and chaotic to automated and streamlined. Throughout this series, I'll show you exactly how to leverage Asana's powerful automation and AI capabilities to create systems that run your business for you.

IN THIS EPISODE, I COVER:

➔ How to structure your Asana workspace for real efficiency
➔ The best time-saving features inside Asana (that most people ignore)
➔ How to automate recurring tasks, content planning, and client workflows with just a few clicks

RESOURCES:

📌 Asana – Free and paid plans available
📌 AI Evergreen Content Machine Waitlist
📌 Done-for-You Custom GPT Setup

RELATED EPISODES OF TECH SAVVY 101:

🎙️ Episode #133: Asana Tutorial: How to Automate 24 Hours of Work Each Week
🎙️ Episode #128: Systems That Scale: How to Create SOPs That Actually Work for Your Business

⏱️  TIMESTAMPS:

00:59 – Setting Up Your Asana Workspace
03:34 – Organizing Projects for Automation
07:04 – Creating Recurring Tasks and Dependencies
12:10 – Leveraging AI Features in Asana
13:37 – Integrating Asana with Other Tools
15:54 – Automating Tasks with Asana Rules
18:31 – Conclusion and Next Steps

📲 Send us a text! Let us know what AI + Automation Topics you want to learn about next!

LET'S CONNECT

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Episode Transcript

Sarah Baker (00:01):
Hey there.

Welcome back to Tech Savvy 101: AI Automation Made Simple. (00:01):
undefined
I'm your host, Sarah Baker, yourtech savvy bestie, who's here to
help you simplify your business,embrace automation, and save
hours every week.
Today I'm excited to bring youthe second episode of our
automated systems that scaleminiseries, where we're

(00:22):
exploring how the right projectmanagement system can transform
your business from manual andchaotic to automated and
streamlined.
Throughout this series, I'mshowing you exactly how to
leverage asana's powerfulautomation and AI capabilities
to create systems that help yourun your business on autopilot.

(00:43):
If you're tired of repetitivetasks, eating up your day, if
you're drowning in follow-upsand deadline tracking, or if you
are ready to scale withoutworking more hours, this series
is your roadmap to building anautomated business machine.
In today's episode, we'refocusing on setting up your
Asana workspace with automationin mind From day one.

(01:06):
By the end of this episode,you'll know exactly how to
configure your account, createprojects, and set up your very
first automation rules to startsaving time immediately.
So let's dive in.
We're gonna start by talkingabout how to create your Asana
account with automation in mind.
If you haven't already set upyour Asana account, now is the

(01:28):
perfect time.
I'm gonna walk you through theprocess, step by step, focusing
on the choices that will set youup for maximum automation
potential.
First, obviously, you're gonnahead to asana.com and click on
"Get Started." You can eithersign up with your Google
account, an Apple account, oryour email address.
I recommend using the accountthat you use for most of your

(01:50):
business tools because that'sgonna make integrations so much
easier down the line.
Once you're in Asana will askyou what you want to use it for.
Even if you're a solopreneur, Irecommend selecting"work with my
team." The reason for this isbecause rather than"organize my
work," which is the otheroption, the team functionality

(02:11):
unlocks more automationfeatures, even if your team is
just you, yourself, and you.
Next, you're gonna choose yourprimary role and department.
This helps Asana suggestrelevant templates.
The templates are amazing.
You don't have to start fromscratch.
It's going to auto build a lotof the projects for you.

(02:34):
You can always access all of thetemplates regardless of what you
select at this stage.
But do not forget about thetemplates, and we're gonna dive
into that a little bit further.
Now you're gonna come to theworkspace creation step.
This is really important becauseyour workspace name becomes the

(02:55):
overall container, like theumbrella for all of your
projects.
I recommend naming this,whatever your business name is
or just a clear descriptor ofyour business function.
According to a survey byWellingtone, 56% of project
management offices reported asignificant improvement in

(03:17):
efficiency when they structuredtheir digital workspace to match
their organization's structure.
So when you are naming thatumbrella part of your Asana
workspace, think broad.
Now that you've got your accountset up, it's time to think about

(03:38):
how to organize your projects ina way that sets you up for
automation success.
There are several ways tostructure your projects in Asana
and the right approach dependson you and your business.
It also depends on what makessense for your brain.
But there's one principle thatapplies universally, which is

(03:59):
organized by workflow, not byclient or time period.
So what do I mean by that?
Instead of creating a projectfor client A or another for
client B, I recommend that youcreate projects based on the
repeatable processes in yourbusiness.
Like client onboarding orcontent creation or product

(04:24):
launches, things that you canthen duplicate in the future if
you have another launch oranother client onboarding, or
more content creation by monthor by year.
Why is this?
Because automation works bestwhen it's applied to consistent,

(04:44):
repeatable workflows.
According to a study by PMI,organizations that structure
their project management aroundrepeatable processes are 52%
more likely to complete projectson time and within budget.
So let me give you an example ofhow to set up a few key projects

(05:07):
that most businesses need.
One example is a clientonboarding process.
For this one, I would recommendusing Asana's board view, which
is where it's like a Kanbanboard style.
You can create sections for newleads, a discovery call
scheduled, a proposal sent, acontract signed, onboarding in

(05:27):
process, onboarding complete.
All of these creates a veryvisual representation of where
all of your clients are in theprocess.
You could create a project forcontent pipeline creation.
And in this example, you couldcreate either a board style or a
calendar view, which isextremely helpful for content

(05:51):
creation.
And sections could includecontent ideas, in research, in
production, ready for review,scheduled, and published.
You could also create anoperations hub depending on your
business style.
This would be where you couldmanage all of your business
operations tasks.
Now in this case, you could usemaybe a list view with sections

(06:15):
for finance and accounting,marketing and production, team
management, or even systems andtools.
Now for each project, you canthen add in custom fields, which
are incredibly useful forautomation.
You can add fields likepriority: low, medium, and high.

Status (06:34):
not started, in progress, waiting on, and
complete.
Things like due date, or evenassigned to, if you have
multiple team members, to keeptrack of who's in charge of
which project.
According to Asana's ownresearch, teams who use custom
fields effectively save 33% moretime through automation than

(06:56):
those who don't.
These fields become criticaltriggers for the automations
that you can then set up.
Speaking of that, let's now talkabout setting up those recurring
tasks and automateddependencies.
One of the very simplest formsof automation in Asana is
setting up those recurringtasks.

(07:19):
This ensures that routine workhappens automatically and in the
right sequence.
A study by Harvard BusinessReview found that knowledge
workers waste an average of 41%of their time on discretionary
activities that offer littlepersonal satisfaction and could

(07:41):
be handled by others.
What does that mean?
It means they're doing boringtasks for almost half of their
workday.
Recurring tasks help eliminatethis waste of time by ensuring
routine work gets done withoutmanual intervention.

(08:02):
So let's talk about how to setthis up.
First, you're gonna create arecurring task in Asana.
For example, you could create arecurring task for"review weekly
analytics." This could be foryour YouTube channel, your
podcast, your blog, yourwebsite, anything that has
analytics, which is practicallyeverything these days.

(08:23):
This could occur every Mondaymorning and be a recurring task.
Inside Asana, it's as easy asclicking on the calendar icon
next to the due date andselecting, make this task
repeat.
You can choose how often youwant it to repeat daily, weekly,
monthly, or even a custompattern like every two weeks or

(08:45):
every 10 weeks, or every fourthThursday, every first Monday of
the month.
Then you set up taskdependencies, which means that
you're creating a sequence whereone task automatically becomes
active when another iscompleted.
So it's reliant on the firsttask becoming complete.

(09:08):
Once you check the little box inAsana that you've completed the
task, the next task becomesactive.
So, for example, in the projectthat we talked about earlier
about creating content, if thetask is"schedule social media
posts," that task won't becomeactive until you've completed

(09:29):
the task of creating graphics.
One of my favorite features isalso subtasks.
Subtasks are perfect forbreaking down really complex
processes and also for projectsthat you repeat over and over
and over again.
It removes a lot of the mentalto-do list because instead of

(09:50):
having to remember all of thesteps that it takes to complete
a project or a task, you cancreate subtasks and then go
through and check all of thesubtasks off each time you
complete the task.
For example, in the clientonboarding project, you can
create a task for welcoming anew client with subtasks for
sending a welcome email, sharingan onboarding questionnaire,

(10:14):
scheduling a kickoff call,setting up your client in your
billing system, and so on and soon.
I have over 20 subtasks for eachof my podcast episodes, for
example, including creating thepodcast, scheduling the podcast,
editing the podcast, creatingthe cover art, scheduling a

(10:37):
blog.
All of the steps that it takesfrom coming up with the topic
all the way through schedulingand promoting.
And I have a project for all ofmy podcasts.
That's the umbrella.
And then I have tasks withinthat.
Are each episode and thensubtasks on each episode or task

(10:59):
that represent all of the stepsit takes to publish each
episode.
So that way I am one consistentwith how I handle each episode's
production.
And two, I don't have to thinkabout it for each time and
remember, did I skip a step?
When I'm producing each episodeof my podcast, I can go through

(11:19):
all of the subtasks and knowthat yes, I hit all of the
steps.
I didn't forget to do anything,and I have completed each
episode.
It is incredibly helpful for allof those repeatable tasks.
According to research via Asana,breaking work down into subtasks
increases completion rate by 20%and reduces the time spent on

(11:43):
coordination by 25%.
For me personally, usingsubtasks removes that mental
burden because I don't have tokeep the running to-do list in
my head because I know that it'sin my asana.
Therefore, I don't have to havea constantly running to-do list
either in my head or on a pieceof paper on my desk because I

(12:04):
know it's in there and that Ihaven't forgotten anything.
So it removes that level ofstress.
Now let's explore how toleverage Asana's AI features to
make your task management evenmore efficient.
First, I'm gonna recommend usingAsana's Smart recommendations.
As you create tasks, Asana's AIwill start to suggest due dates,

(12:27):
assignees, and even relatedtasks based on your past work
patterns.
These suggestions get moreaccurate over time as the AI
learns your workflows.
So the more you use it, thebetter it gets.
Next, leveraging naturallanguage processing for task
creation.
Asana's AI can understandnatural language inputs.

(12:51):
So for example, if I type"schedule client meeting with
Sarah next Tuesday at 2:00 PM,"Asana will automatically create
a task with the correct date,time, and assignee.
Finally using AI for workloadmanagement.
Asana's workload view uses AI tohelp you visualize team capacity

(13:12):
and balance work moreeffectively.
This is crucial for preventingburnout and ensuring your
deadlines are realistic.
According to a study by Gallup,employees who feel their
workload is well managed are 70%less likely to experience
burnout.
Asana's AI powered workloadmanagement helps ensure that no

(13:34):
one on your team is overloaded.
Now let's talk aboutintegrations with your existing
tools to help you createseamless workflows.
The real power of using Asana asyour automation hub comes from
connecting with all of yourother business tools.
So let's talk about a few keyintegrations.

(13:55):
First off, you can integrate itwith your email.
You can create Asana tasksdirectly from emails by
forwarding them [e-mail].
This is a huge time saver forturning client requests or
important information intoactionable tasks.
Research by McKinsey found thatprofessionals spend 28% of their

(14:19):
workday managing email.
Yikes.
So by integrating email withyour project management system,
you can cut that timesignificantly.
Next up, you can sync yourcalendar with Asana.
You can connect Asana withGoogle Calendar or Outlook, and
that ensures that your taskdeadlines appear on your

(14:39):
calendar and that your calendarevents can be reflected in your
Asana.
You can also use Zapierconnection.
Zapier is the bridge thatconnects Asana to over 3000
other apps, so you can createZaps that will create an Asana
task whenever a new formsubmission comes in from your
website.

(15:01):
According to Zapier's State ofBusiness automation report,
businesses that use integrationtools like Zapier save an
average of five hours per weekper employee.
There are literally hundreds ofother integrations.
I have the Slack integration, Ihave the Google Docs integration

(15:23):
and the Google Driveintegration, so I'm able to
connect tons of my documentsright into my Asana.
You can integrate MicrosoftTeams.
You can integrate Canva, Vimeo,Figma, salesforce, there are

(15:43):
hundreds of integrationsavailable.
If you use it, there is probablyan Asana integration for it.
Now let's talk about setting uprules in Asana to automate
repetitive tasks.
Asana's rules feature lets youcreate an if this, then that

(16:07):
automation without any coding.
Here are some of the options.
First off, I want to mentionthat they have quick start
automation templates that youcan implement immediately.
So you do not need to start fromscratch.
You do not need to reinvent thewheel.
Here are some of my favoriteautomations.
You can set up automatic statusupdates.

(16:30):
For example, when a task movesto a specific section, then
change the status to match thesection.
This ensures that your taskstatuses are always up to date
without you having to manuallychange them.
Next due date follow ups.
When the task is approaching itsdue date, then send a

(16:52):
notification to whoever the taskis assigned to.
This creates automatic reminderswithout you having to check in
manually.
Another one of my favorites isnew Subtask creation.
When a task is moved to, forexample, a"contract signed"
section in client onboarding,then it will automatically

(17:15):
create all onboarding subtasks,and assign the task to team
members.
This ensures that your entireonboarding process kicks off
automatically when a new clientsigns on with your business.
The onboarding subtasks, wouldbe preset in a template that you

(17:37):
create.
And finally, another one Ireally like is a new form
response automation.
When a new form is submitted, orreceived, then it creates a task
and assigns that task to a teammember.
And adds it to a specificproject.

(17:59):
This is perfect for clientintake, content requests, or
support tickets.
So all of these are really,really great ways to automate
repetitive tasks using rules.
According to Asana, teams thatuse rules effectively automate
an average of seven hours ofmanual work per week.

(18:22):
That is a whole business day.
And these templates can give youan immediate headstart on how to
get started in Asana..
So we've covered a lot of groundtoday.
You now have the foundation foran automated business hub in
Asana.
We've talked about how to set upyour account.
We've created strategic businessstructures.
We've talked about how toconfigure recurring tasks and

(18:44):
dependencies, how to leveragethe AI features, how to
integrate with other tools, andwe've talked about how to
implement your first automationrules.
The key to success with Asana orany project management system is
consistency.
Start by moving one workflow ata time into your new system and
focus on setting up automationsfor that workflow before moving

(19:08):
on to the next one.
This incremental approach willhelp you avoid feeling
overwhelmed while still makingmeaningful progress.
In our next episode, we'll divedeeper into advanced automation
strategies, showing you how tocreate complex workflows that
run your business while youfocus on growth.
If you're finding value in thismini series, I'd love it if you

(19:31):
could subscribe and leave areview.
It helps other tech curiousentrepreneurs find the show.
Thanks so much for tuning in totoday's episode of Tech Savvy
101.
I'll see you really soon.