Trello vs. Asana (please help)

Lisa C Peake

Registered
I'm a longtime GTDer and Things users these past 5 years or so.

I'm in a new job and tasked with rolling out a new shared software (we're a Mac house), and my plan is to get this tiny <5 person team (with many vendors) onto GTD asap.

They have Trello but never used it apart from the one GTDer who has moved on and swore by it—thoughts?

And Asana I know from another project manager using it, but it wasn't well-received. People found it complicated, but I think that's largely because the PM wasn't a GTDer and no one had a shared context for organizing their work.

I am grieving the fact that I will likely migrate fully to one of these two softwares and off of Things, only because it doesn't allow sharing. It's just so important for me to have one system and not divide personal/professional especially right now as my parenting/work balance is very fluid.

I welcome your reco's, Trusted GTDers!
 

TesTeq

Registered
I'm a longtime GTDer and Things users these past 5 years or so.

I'm in a new job and tasked with rolling out a new shared software (we're a Mac house), and my plan is to get this tiny <5 person team (with many vendors) onto GTD asap.

They have Trello but never used it apart from the one GTDer who has moved on and swore by it—thoughts?

And Asana I know from another project manager using it, but it wasn't well-received. People found it complicated, but I think that's largely because the PM wasn't a GTDer and no one had a shared context for organizing their work.

I am grieving the fact that I will likely migrate fully to one of these two softwares and off of Things, only because it doesn't allow sharing. It's just so important for me to have one system and not divide personal/professional especially right now as my parenting/work balance is very fluid.

I welcome your reco's, Trusted GTDers!
Have you considered Nozbe? Their newest version is even more team oriented.
 

thomasbk

Registered
I use Asana for work and keep the list view. But for those who prefer Trello, you can toggle to a board view instead.

Asana works best if everyone uses it. Otherwise, holdouts turn into leaks in the system. If only one person uses it then it's fine because it's no different than keeping your personal system current. But if there's an expectation that colleagues are updating their projects then you'll quickly lose faith in it because of the missing information.

They have Asana Academy which does a good job of teaching people everything from the basics to advanced tips. They're short, self-paced topics and you earn a certificate of completion at the end of each course.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
I'm a longtime GTDer and Things users these past 5 years or so.

I'm in a new job and tasked with rolling out a new shared software (we're a Mac house), and my plan is to get this tiny <5 person team (with many vendors) onto GTD asap.

They have Trello but never used it apart from the one GTDer who has moved on and swore by it—thoughts?

And Asana I know from another project manager using it, but it wasn't well-received. People found it complicated, but I think that's largely because the PM wasn't a GTDer and no one had a shared context for organizing their work.

I am grieving the fact that I will likely migrate fully to one of these two softwares and off of Things, only because it doesn't allow sharing. It's just so important for me to have one system and not divide personal/professional especially right now as my parenting/work balance is very fluid.

I welcome your reco's, Trusted GTDers!

Welcome back, Lisa!

I use Things too, and I wouldn’t like to give it up for either Asana or Trello. I kind of suspect that introducing GTD as something individuals can use and introducing groupware may be two things best done sequentially, in either order, rather than both at once. Reminders under iOS 13 and Catalina might be cleaner and simpler for shared tasks.
 

Lisa C Peake

Registered
I use Asana for work and keep the list view. But for those who prefer Trello, you can toggle to a board view instead.

Asana works best if everyone uses it. Otherwise, holdouts turn into leaks in the system. If only one person uses it then it's fine because it's no different than keeping your personal system current. But if there's an expectation that colleagues are updating their projects then you'll quickly lose faith in it because of the missing information.

They have Asana Academy which does a good job of teaching people everything from the basics to advanced tips. They're short, self-paced topics and you earn a certificate of completion at the end of each course.

Thank you this is super helpful! I didn't know about the Academy, either.

And I agree, it would be a lot to rollout software + GTD concurrently... if that were my only role and if the company were more established, but neither is the case.
 

devon.marie

Registered
I wouldn't give up on Things just yet!

I love and use Trello every day (and am a Community Leader for the product on the Atlassian Community). I think it's an incredible product that's perfect for project collaboration. That said... my suggestion would be to track projects on Trello and let everyone use the personal task management software they like.

I would implement this by setting up Butler on every Trello board you use. It lets you automate an ungodly number of things. Set a command to send an email every time you are added to a Trello card. Tell it to send the email to your Mail to Things email address and include a link to the card on Trello. Here's the setup, in photo form:

60546417d1151335e337f6d2944e2fe2.png


Type your email in the "send email notification to" and leave the subject and message the same. Those text bits in brackets will pull the data from the Trello card for you.

This way, you can keep using the system you like, while collaborating with the team on Trello. Every time you're assigned something on Trello, it will automatically add a task to your Things account for you. And you'll have a quick link back to the card on Trello in the task description.

Best of both worlds! :)
 
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