A Better Way to Create Checklists
Asana! This free online tool has been great in not only planning our RV trip but has made creating and personalizing our RV checklists a breeze (but you could use them anywhere). You can access Asana through the web or through the Asana app on your smart phone. Go ahead and set up a log in and create new projects (or in this case checklists) for tasks that need to be completed. So far I’ve created two RV checklists:
- ‘Pre-flight’ Checklist – this lists all tasks we need to complete before leaving any site
- Settling In Checklist – this list has all tasks for stopping or settling in for a night
Asana will give you the ability to –
- Easily rearrange your lists by clicking and dragging tasks in the order that works for you or your coach
- Give multiple people access to your projects and lists
- Assign certain tasks to different people (lets just say I assigned Erik to unplug the sewer pipe)
- Bring up the Asana app and have your checklists on your smart phone
- Don’t have a smart phone you can easily print your list right from the tool
- Provides the ability (or check box if printed) to mark tasks as completed once they are done
I’ve attached our two lists (highlighted above) and a sample view of my Asana page.
Feel free to use our attached lists and let us know if anything should be added, changed or removed. We are definitely open to any suggestions or tips.
Here is the link to the Asana website, https://app.asana.com/
Check it out and let us know if you found any other cool ways to use it!
What’s the down side?
At this time Asana required Internet access to display lists. Per their website they are currently working on creating an offline mode.
Don’t like Asana? Check out another alternative called Wunderlist. https://www.wunderlist.com Wunderlist currently supports offline mode as well, we found it excellent for basic checklists and it has a much more developed application. We chose Asana as our primary tool because it also doubles as a productivity tool for work and has tons of plugins that allow us to do just about everything including bill our clients every month. Whatever you decide to use please leave us your feedback and comments below.
See you on the road!
Hey Erik,
Thanks for the follow up, and color me surprised! I guess the logic is that when you’re on just the wheels / rubber, the coach is in a natural state, thus no binding.. and when on jacks, the chassis could be twisted thus putting more pressure on the rooms? Just speculation of course..
Very interesting…
You and me both! (surprised). Everyone in the park we are at is using the logic you stated (jacks first down then slides) so i guess the rule of thumb is check with your coach manufacturer! Thanks for checking in!
Hello Erik & Kala,
8 yr full timer here with one quick tip regarding your checklist.. I notice in your ‘Settling in’ list, you have ‘Extend slides’ after ‘Level coach’. Most manufacturers (all that I’m aware of) recommend leveling first, then extending the slides. This is because the slide rooms will incur much more stress if the coach is not level first, and you risk damaging the slide rooms and/or flooring. Even if the manufacturer doesn’t specifically state a policy one way or the other, it makes sense to keep stresses down to a minimum where ever possible.. 🙂
Congrats on the new lifestyle and hope you have as much fun as we do!
Michael J. Kidd
http://turtleherding.com
Hey Mike, thanks for the comment! Much has been talked about on this topic for sure. We checked with the dealer when we purchase and with Entegra and were told to always do it before leveling but I searched plenty on the forums and found most manufacturers say exactly what you state. Ultimately we went with what the dealer said the manufacturer stated but we are going to call the manufacturer directly “just to double check” regardless. That could be a good article idea too, maybe we’ll call around to all the manufacturers and make an official list by rv type if we notice a pattern that they aren’t all the same. Thanks for post, well keep you posted on what we hear.
Hey Mike, as promised we checked with Entegra and they sent us this video link. Looks like we were doing it right for our coach but every coach is different. Thanks for the comments and suggestions, keep em coming! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcVc2RckXS8