Looking for a More User-friendly Alternative to Asana Meeting Notes?

Meetings are the single most time-consuming activity. 

We all know the power of good meeting notes but most teams don’t have a good system in place for them - and thus they often go out the door.

If you are currently using Asana, you probably have come to the same conclusion we did: It takes extra effort (and time) to set up a meeting project template to write our notes.

We need software that actually supports us in navigating meetings and helps us diminish excessive mental overload and workplace chaos. 

This is why we created Workjoy’s user-friendly meeting notes feature.

The problem with Asana meeting notes

Although Asana is a good project management software, it does lack effortlessly supporting meeting preparation and following up. 

When you want to create meeting notes in Asana, you have to create a new project. This can become your problem nr. 1. If you think about it, if every time you have a meeting you need to create a new project, after some time your project overview can become cluttered with projects that are tasks mixed with projects that are meetings.

After you create the project, Asana allows you to select a meeting template to take your notes. It can be either a list or a board depending on the type of meeting you select as default. Although having options can seem like a great advantage, it can slow you down. 

If you are juggling between tasks and deadlines, when you set up a meeting, you want that process to be fast. And, if you are presented with multiple customizable options, you may spend more time deciding on the best format, than you would if you had software that presented you with the simplest and best option possible – like Workjoy.

A third problem with Asana meeting notes is that when you want to write the topics for the agenda, you do it by adding tasks – so each topic corresponds to a task. This can become a bit confusing when you add action items, making following up more challenging.

How Workjoy helps you prepare your meetings

We want to solve the same problem Asana is trying to solve: Support your meeting process and make it more effective. But our solution is different.

We created our meeting notes features to support you from meeting setup to following up. Here are some of our unique key meeting preparation sub-features:

Sync or async – we’ve got you covered

Meeting notes in Asana were built to (only) support your synchronous meetings. Nonetheless, as hybrid and remote environments become more prevalent, meetings also need to encompass more inclusive and productive forms of gathering to discuss ideas and make decisions. Hence, async meetings were born.

In Workjoy, you can easily schedule both types of meetings and get the meeting support you need.

• If you are looking to schedule a synchronous meeting, simply select “+ New Meeting” and enter a title and a date and time. After this step, you can invite participants.

• If you want to schedule an async meeting, the process is the same, but after step one, you click on the three dots in the right corner and activate “Async”. You can then edit the duration of the meeting.

Async meetings can be your go-to meeting format if your goal is to reach a thought-through decision, as it promotes reflection instead of reaction. Plus, if your team is spaced between various time zones, going async assures everyone can participate at their own pace.

Meeting introduction so everyone knows its purpose

In a great meeting, everyone clearly knows its purpose and their role. So, we designed an easily accessible space for you to write your meeting introduction and goals – contrary to what you find in Asana, where goals are disguised as tasks and notes included in sub-meeting sections.

Meetings that do not have a clear purpose or have too many goals to fulfill are unproductive and often chaotic. To avoid this and because we built Workjoy drawing on the best scientific leadership practices, you are encouraged to write a meeting introduction where we invite you to answer 3 questions:

• Why are we meeting? – Pick one (or max two) purpose(s) per meeting.

• Why are people here? – Everyone present should be able to add value to the meeting. By stating what you expect from each participant, you promote ownership of the meeting outcomes. You should also ensure everyone invited is indispensable to the meeting.

• What are the decisions to be made? – decide on what decisions you should reach and what type of decision you are making. Is it an autocratic, a consensus, or a democratic decision? And who is the decision maker? This helps to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Meeting agenda with clear notes

In Asana, if you want to write meeting notes you need to create a sub-section entitled “notes”. This makes it less intuitive to access valuable information on the agenda.

In contrast, with Workjoy, for each topic of the agenda you can write a description and some notes which will appear in bullet points, to make it easy for everyone to have key knowledge of what is going to be discussed. Plus, you can make your notes richer by tagging other meetings, people, tasks, goals, projects, and even announcements.

We made everything easily accessible. Just go to the meeting page and you can instantly read the full agenda.

How Workjoy helps you during your meetings

Preparing for the meeting is one of the most critical and often overlooked steps for its success. Although having the meeting may take less effort because it draws on the previous preparation, we have created a sub-feature to make the process smoother:

Highlighted decisions

As the meeting takes place, you can add extra notes to the agenda and even add the decision you reach for each topic discussed. This format ensures your meeting insights stay organised and people are aligned.

The decisions will appear highlighted to make it easy for people to come back to what you agreed on during the meeting.

How Workjoy helps you follow up on your meetings

Following up on meetings is critical for reaching the project's desired outcomes. Here is how we support you in this process:

Action items so you can delegate and follow up

After a productive meeting, there are usually next steps to follow through. Typically, each participant has tasks assigned to them and/or their team. 

On Workjoy, it is easy to follow up on these next steps. On the meeting page, you have a section called Action Items. Here you can add your asks (and respective deadlines), which will automatically be turned into tasks by our software. Hence you will be able to see them on the meeting page and your Tasks tab.

As the new tasks will follow a particular workflow, our software gives leaders the status of each meeting's next step. So, they can easily notice when something is falling behind.

Easily accessible recaps

If you need to review some meeting notes, insights, or decisions, you can do so by simply going to the meeting page. Everything you wrote prior to, during, or after the meeting will be there.

This can be particularly useful to ensure alignment and hold each other accountable.

Key takeaways

Asana created their meeting notes to support you in your meeting process. Workjoy ensures you receive real support at each stage of your meetings – from preparation to follow-up.

Workjoy is about the best leadership practices, more alignment, less effort, and more productive meetings.