Synopsis
As The InterPlex continues to grow, adopting a shared task management system will help us coordinate work more effectively, reduce the risk of important tasks falling through the cracks, and create greater transparency around project status and responsibilities. A centralized platform will allow us to view the tasks each team member is working on, track deadlines, monitor progress, set reminders, distribute workload, document workflows, and maintain continuity across multiple concurrent projects. This will allow us to spend less time coordinating logistics and more time focusing on core tasks.
Another practical reason why it would benefit The InterPlex to develop a standardized task management system is that the same system can persist through staff turnover or team growth. As I noticed when I first onboarded with The InterPlex, previous staff members that I took over for each had their own workflow and organization system, with the result that as these collaborators came and went, it became difficult to account for what one person had done and where their work might be found. Getting everyone on the same page and on the same task management platform will eliminate this issue in future personnel changes.
1. Platform selection
Our team’s core tasks center around writing, outreach, publishing, social media management, video production, and fundraising. To effectively manage these tasks, we need a task manager that can simultaneously handle:
- Editorial pipelines
- Contributor tracking
- Recurring publishing schedules
- Video production workflows
- Fundraising tasks
- Deadlines and reminders
We should also prioritize using a platform that is fairly straightforward to learn and navigate, providing structure without becoming overly technical; low friction and minimum administrative overhead will allow us to focus on our tasks rather than system maintenance.
Taking these needs as a starting point, I compared some of the most popular task management programs to assess which would best fit our needs. My research, as well as my prior experience using it, suggests that Asana is likely our best option. Asana is probably the largest task manager on the market and offers a good balance of simplicity, affordability, and functionality. See their website for a full list of relevant features, many of which would facilitate our workflow.
Sources recommend the Asana Starter tier as the optimal tier for small teams. This tier is priced at $10.99 per user/month (billed annually) or $13.49 (billed monthly) and provides features like timeline views, task dependencies, workflow automation, and basic dashboards. This would seem an appropriate and affordable option for our current workflow needs.
2. Asana workflow
When planning our task management workflow, we should resist the temptation to create dozens of projects for every focus area, content type, and activity. We should rather simplify our organizational structure and workflow as much as possible. At the broadest level, we can begin by identifying five primary areas:
- Editorial Pipeline
- Social Media
- Multimedia Production
- Fundraising
- Operations
Each of these areas can in turn be broken down into sections. Each specific project per section receives its own task, with associated subtasks, deadlines, and custom fields for author, content type, publication target date, priority, status, etc.
One of the useful features of Asana is the ability to create templates adapted to specific task categories. In our case, we can adapt our general content category production checklists: the InterArticle checklist, InterDialogue checklist, and InterPod checklist. To help keep things on track, checklist items should have specific deadlines for contributor follow-up, first draft delivery, editing, publication, promotion, etc. At minimum, every task should have an owner, a due date (when appropriate), and a current status.
3. Example
Task
InterArticle: Biocultural Heritage in the Afro-Colombian Pacific
Fields
Owner: Rowan Glass
Due: June 15, 2026
Priority: High
Status: Drafting
Subtasks
Identify sources (by May 1)
Conduct interviews (May 15)
Review literature (May 20)
First draft (May 25)
Editorial review (May 30)
Second draft (May 5)
Fact check (June 10)
Publish (June 15)
Social media promotion (June 20)
Newsletter inclusion (July 1)
Related
2.1 Content calendar
2.2 InterPod production checklist
2.3 InterArticle production checklist
2.4 InterDialogue production checklist
2.5 Newsletter production checklist
2.7 Social media post checklist
3.2 Contributor database
3.6 Recruitment database
4.1 Fundraising database
4.2 Institutional partnership database