How to Set Up Asana My Tasks in 2026

Set up Asana My Tasks by treating it as one triage inbox: keep Recently assigned as your catch-all, add a few custom sections that match how you actually work rather than the old Today/Upcoming/Later defaults, then, if you’re on a paid plan, add a due-date rule to file tasks automatically. Everything else is optional polish.

That’s the short version. The longer version matters because Asana quietly changed how My Tasks organizes itself, and a lot of older advice online still describes behavior that no longer exists. Here’s how it works now, what’s worth configuring, and where the plan limits bite.

What My Tasks actually is (and what changed)

My Tasks is your personal view of every task assigned to you across every project. You don’t add tasks to it manually for the most part; anything assigned to you shows up here automatically. You reach it by clicking My tasks in the left sidebar, and you can look at the same tasks as a list, a board, or a calendar.

The important change: Today, Upcoming, and Later used to be built-in sections that Asana promoted tasks through automatically as due dates approached. That automatic promotion is gone. Those three sections are no longer special, and nothing moves tasks between them unless you set up a rule to do it. If you’ve read a guide that talks about tasks “graduating” from Later to Today on their own, that guide is describing the old system. Today the only section with any built-in behavior is Recently assigned.

Recently assigned is the one section you can’t delete

When a task is first assigned to you, it lands in Recently assigned. This is the catch-all inbox. You can rename it to something like “Inbox” or “Triage,” but you cannot delete it, and you shouldn’t want to, because it’s where new work appears, including tasks you create by emailing x@mail.asana.com. Treat it as a holding pen: things arrive here, and your job is to move them somewhere deliberate. If tasks assigned to you aren’t turning up at all, that’s usually a notification or filter problem rather than a My Tasks bug, and it’s worth checking why Asana notifications sometimes stop working.

Start with sections, not rules

Before you touch automation, decide how you want your work grouped. Sections are just headers you drag tasks under, and for most people two to four is plenty. Common setups that hold up in practice: by urgency (Today, This week, Later), by context (Deep work, Quick wins, Waiting on others), or by project area if your work splits cleanly into a couple of buckets.

Resist the urge to rebuild a ten-section system. My Tasks rewards ruthlessness. The more sections you have, the more filing overhead you create, and the less you’ll trust the list.

How to create and organize sections

1. Open My tasks from the left sidebar and make sure you’re in List view.
2. Click Add section at the bottom of your task list, or press Tab then N.
3. Type a name and press Enter.
4. Drag tasks into the section, or select a task and use Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down to move it between sections.
5. Reorder sections themselves by dragging their headers into the order you want.

One caveat that trips people up: you can only drag tasks around freely when your list is not sorted by due date. If drag-and-drop feels locked, check your sort setting first.

Recreating Today, Upcoming, and Later with rules

If you liked the old automatic sections, you can rebuild them, but you’ll do it yourself with rules, and this is where your plan matters. Rules are Asana’s automations. In My Tasks they can watch a task’s due date and move it into a section for you overnight.

Here’s the honest gating situation, straight from Asana’s documentation. Everyone, including the free Personal plan, gets one preset: Due date is approaching. That single rule is enough to auto-file tasks by deadline. The fuller preset gallery and the custom rule builder are paywalled.

So on the free plan you can auto-move tasks as their due date nears, but you can’t, for example, automatically sweep completed tasks out of the way or catch overdue items with a rule. For that you need a paid tier. As of mid-July 2026, Personal is free for up to two users, Starter is $10.99 per user per month billed annually, and Advanced is $24.99 per user per month billed annually. (Ignore any “$5.99” figure you see floating around for Starter; that’s the price of the Timesheets and Budgets add-on, not the plan itself.)

How to set up a due-date rule

1. Open My tasks and click Customize in the top-right corner.
2. Click Add rule.
3. Choose the Due date is approaching preset.
4. Set how many days before the due date the rule should fire.
5. Pick the section tasks should move to, for example Today.
6. Save it. To recreate the old flow, add a second rule that moves tasks into an Upcoming section a few days earlier.

A couple of things to expect. Rules run overnight, roughly between midnight and 1am, so a task won’t jump sections the instant you set a due date; it moves on the next nightly pass. And a small lightning-bolt icon appears next to any section that has a rule attached, which is a handy way to see at a glance what’s automated. If you already lean on rules elsewhere in Asana, the same logic and triggers apply, and Asana’s own guide to rules in My Tasks lists every preset.

Sort, filter, and group without overthinking it

My Tasks remembers your Sort, Filter, and View choices automatically, so you set them once. The three controls do different jobs:

• Sort reorders tasks inside their sections, most usefully by due date. Remember that sorting by due date disables manual dragging.
• Filter hides tasks that don’t match a condition. You can filter on any built-in or custom field, like showing only incomplete tasks or only things due this week, and stack multiple filters.
• Group by reorganizes tasks by a field instead of by your sections. Grouping by a priority field is a favorite, and it’s a good reason to set up custom fields in Asana if you haven’t. Group by works in list and board views.

My advice: pick sort by due date and a “hide completed” filter, and leave it. That combination gives you a clean, deadline-ordered list without constant fiddling.

Views: list, board, or calendar

List view is the default and the one most people should live in. Board view turns your sections into columns, which suits a personal kanban flow if you think in stages rather than dates. Calendar view is genuinely useful for spotting a week that’s overloaded before it arrives, since it plots tasks by due date. You can filter in all three views, and grouping carries across list and board. Switch between them from the view tabs at the top of My Tasks; whichever you pick is saved for next time.

Creating tasks and keeping them private

Add a task with the + Add task button at the top-left, or by clicking Add task under a specific section. Anything you create here is automatically assigned to you and private to you. That privacy point matters and surprises people: a task you jot down in My Tasks is invisible to your team until you add it to a project (multi-home it). There’s a visibility column so you can see who can see each task. This makes My Tasks a fine place for personal to-dos and half-formed ideas, but a bad place to assume your manager can see your progress.

In list view, a blue dot next to a task name means you haven’t opened it since it was assigned. Clicking the task clears the dot. It’s a lightweight read/unread marker for new work.

Keyboard shortcuts worth memorizing

You don’t need the full list, but a handful genuinely speed up daily triage:

• Enter creates a new task; Shift + Enter creates one above the current task.
• Tab + N creates a section.
• Tab + M assigns the selected task to you.
• Tab + D sets a due date.
• Tab + A assigns the task to someone.
• Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down moves the selected task to the next or previous section.

The full reference lives in Asana’s keyboard shortcuts documentation if you want the rest.

A few things My Tasks doesn’t do well

It’s worth being clear-eyed. My Tasks only shows tasks assigned to you, so it’s useless as a team overview; for that you need project or portfolio views. Rules run once overnight, not in real time, so it won’t reshuffle the moment you change a date. And if you share your account with automation-heavy expectations, the free plan’s single rule preset will feel thin fast. My Tasks is a personal execution surface, not a reporting tool. If you’re evaluating whether Asana is even the right home for this kind of workflow, our comparisons of Trello versus Asana and ClickUp versus Asana weigh the trade-offs.

When not to bother customizing

If you’re assigned only a handful of tasks a week, skip the sections and rules entirely. Sort by due date, hide completed, and you’re done. The elaborate section-and-rule setups pay off when you’re juggling dozens of tasks across many projects and need the list to file itself. Below that volume, you’ll spend more time maintaining the system than it saves. You can also pull in apps like a Slack integration through the Customize menu, but again, only if it earns its place.

Frequently asked questions

Why don’t my Today, Upcoming, and Later sections update automatically anymore?

Because Asana replaced automatic promotion with rules. Those sections now behave like any other section and stay put unless you build a due-date rule to move tasks through them. Recreating the old flow takes two rules, and they run overnight rather than instantly.

Can I use My Tasks rules on the free plan?

Partly. The Personal plan includes exactly one rule preset, “Due date is approaching,” which is enough to auto-file tasks by deadline. The overdue and completed-task presets, plus the custom rule builder, require Starter, Advanced, or higher. That’s the main automation limit on free accounts.

Are tasks I create in My Tasks visible to my team?

No. Tasks you create in My Tasks are private to you by default and assigned only to you. They stay invisible to colleagues until you add the task to a shared project. Check the visibility column in My Tasks to confirm exactly who can see each item.

Can someone else manage my My Tasks list?

Yes, through My Tasks membership. Using the Share button you can grant a colleague access to organize your list, or request access to manage theirs. Without granted access, a visitor can only view and sort your tasks for themselves; they can’t create sections, reorder, or see your custom fields.

How many sections should I actually create?

Fewer than you think. Two to four sections covers most people, usually split by urgency or context. More than that and the filing overhead outweighs the benefit, because every new task needs a home and you stop trusting a list that’s fussy to maintain. Start minimal and add only when a real need appears.