‘Async’ explained: Why you should embrace asynchronous work, and six ways to get started

If you’ve been googling work trends in 2021, chances are you’ve come across the term ‘async’ — that is, asynchronous work.

Slack recently shared how it’s helped Canva save 63.75 hours per week with asynchronous standups. GitLab and Dropbox both describe async as vital to the success of their all-remote teams. Atlassian found most knowledge working teams only need about four hours of synchronous work time.

It’s clear asynchronous work offers some real productivity and staff-retention benefits. 

But don’t worry — this isn’t something only a big tech company can pull off. The benefits of working async are well-founded, and the transition may be simpler than you think.