One of my favourite things is discovering brand new productivity tools to see what can work best with helping me run my business (and life, really!) more efficiently; especially when it comes to project management. I've tried a lot over the years, from Trello and Dubsado to Asana and now the latest one which I've been using for the past year, Notion.

Today, I want to dive into two project management tools specifically: Asana and Notion to help you decide which one would work best for you. An initial look at both might make you think they seem very similar when it comes to project management capabilities but there is definitely a lot more to both tools than meets the eye. Let's get started!

Asana

Asana has been a very popular project management tool for both big businesses and solopreneurs for quite a few years, and quite rightly so. With its popular to-do list format, it is so easy to jump in, get organized and track a project immediately. 

If you have a premium or business account, you will have access to creating milestones, rules and timeline views to help stay on track with your projects which can be really useful especially if you are handling multiple accounts or projects at the same time. Asana also offers automations and integrations which can simplify you workflow significantly.

Asana worked really well for me and my team but I did notice it works better for actual projects so if you like keeping your personal and work to-do list in one place like me, it can sometimes feel like a drag. I also noticed that while I love the to-do list format in Asana, it can sometimes feel like you have a never-ending list of tasks to handle so it's important to take time out every quarter or so to prune those tasks.

Notion

Notion is a relatively new project management tool that specializes in being an all-in-one workspace. This means it is highly customizable and can as the main hub for both your business and personal project management. I’ve seen some workspaces look minimalist and utilitarian and others that have great aesthetics and design. Where Notion’s edge lies is the freedom it offers when it comes to creating workspaces that work for you and your business and once you get the hang of how everything works, it’s as easy as dragging blocks to wherever you want them to go.

If creating plans or tables from scratch isn’t your thing, Notion has multiple templates you can use straight away to create pages ranging from content calendars and project management boards to client portals. It really can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. 

That being said, Notion's learning curve can be a lot steeper than Asana's. If you are a small business owner looking to get started with tracking your projects or clients without messing about too much with details, then Notion can feel overwhelming. The great news is that there is a brilliant Notion community out there that share lots of videos, templates and articles on how you can set up your Notion best. 

My thoughts

If you have a large team working on complex or multiple projects then Asana would be your best bet. You don't need to spend too much time setting things up initially and Asana does a fantastic job of tracking progress with its dashboard. 

Notion is a flexible all-around tool that doesn't just offer project management. It works the best for me because I can house my personal tasks and wiki on the same platform as my business tasks. As a small business owner, I like to focus on a select group of clients at a time so having a client portal, project tracker and work live on one platform works best for me.

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