Asana's project model is powerful, but daily execution can sprawl across multiple projects and views. Self-Manager is date-first: your Today plan, notes, timers, and images live together, with as many tables as you need on a single date—so planning and doing stay in one place.

You might get overwhelmed with all the things going on at Asana. Self-Manager focuses on Tasks, notes, and related images in one or more Tables that are organized by date.

Many if not all of the features are intuitive and you can get started instantly.

Self-Manager was built with ease of use in mind and it is a core priority. This app should make you more productive and get things done, not take much time to do basic things.

The app aims to allow you to express yourself with the data that you add—like the freedom to express yourself with a pen and paper but with computer software benefits.

Self-Manager has a unique approach to organize data by each day. This makes it very easy to use. Each day has its own data and you can add data to past and future dates.

Self-Manager's minimalist UI feels desktop-fast in the browser—add tasks, drag between tables, switch dates, or start timers instantly—so you spend more time doing, less clicking.

Navigating between tables and dates on Self-Manager feels instant. It feels like a desktop application that doesn't use the internet.

Adding a new table with tasks is instant. This is possible by using the latest technologies available.

Attach original-quality images to any table and review visuals across work from a global "All Images" page—great for design, research, receipts, or screenshot-heavy notes.

On Self-Manager you can view all your images from all the tables in one place.

There is a button at the bottom of all tables "Show all images" which takes you to a page where all your images are visible. You can also go to the URL directly: self-manager.net/all-images

Above each row of images appears the date for which they were added. Clicking that date takes you to the date with all tables from that date and you can see the notes you took related to your images.

Use Self-Manager's AI to turn prompts into structured tables, get period (week/month) summaries, and chat with your own data.

Asana also invests heavily in AI (smart status, summaries, fields, rule creation, and more, plus emerging "AI teammates"), but it's tied to per-user plans and enterprise rollouts.

Self-Manager's AI is built-in and designed for daily execution—generate entire project plans from a simple description, or ask the AI to summarize what you accomplished this week.

Start a timer on tasks and see table totals and completion insights for the day or period—useful for billing, retros, and estimating without spreadsheets.

Asana now offers built-in time tracking and reporting—strong for many teams—but totals often live in reports/dashboards rather than a day-first canvas.

With Self-Manager, time tracking is integrated directly into your daily view, so you always see where your time goes without switching to separate reporting tools.

Invite your whole team or clients for a flat $20/month on the Team plan—no per-seat fees. Asana pricing is per user (e.g., Starter $10.99/user/mo (annual); Advanced $24.99/user/mo (annual)), so costs scale with headcount.

Your tables, tasks, notes and images are available all at once on a single page. You might want to add a new task and some notes related to it—you can do that on the same page.

You can edit all table info (title and description) and all tasks from a single panel without leaving the page.

If you want to reuse an entire table for a different date, you can just duplicate it and transfer it to the date you want.

The search from the sidebar on desktop or mobile top is powerful and searches through table names, tasks and notes. From the search results page you can click on the table name and navigate directly to that date and table.

Bottom Line

Choose Self-Manager if you want date-first daily execution, built-in AI for setup and reviews, clear time totals, a global image library, and predictable flat team cost.

Choose Asana if you need a broader work-management suite (portfolios, goals, advanced reporting) and you're comfortable with per-user pricing.

For many freelancers, agencies, and growing teams, Self-Manager delivers more capability per dollar and a smoother day-to-day rhythm.