If you haven't heard me talk about ClickUp before, it's the task and project management system that we use for the agency. I've used this in my business for the last two years or so — before that I was using Asana. You might have heard of Asana, or Trello, or Monday — there's a bunch of different tasks and project management systems out there. And if you're not currently using one, I really encourage you to start, because it really doesn't matter which one that you choose, you're going to see the biggest benefits by just starting to use these task management systems really religiously and getting off of that paper planner and those paper to do lists. If you are starting your business or looking to grow your business, or you're starting to bring on team members, the paper is not going to work anymore. That doesn't mean you can never use paper lists again, but having all of your tasks in one central location that you can always get to no matter where you are, and no matter where any of your future team members are, or even your clients, is such a game changer.

Why ClickUp?

Like I said, I was using Asana before, but I switched to ClickUp about two years ago, because it just had some added functionality that I was really looking for that Asana didn't have then. But when you're thinking about getting set up on a task management system, there's a couple of basic functionalities that you really need to make sure that it has.

Visual Set Up

The first main difference between a lot of task and project management systems is going to be actually just how they're visually set up! So Trello has a kanban style, which means the tasks and the statuses are set up into multiple different columns. So you might have a column all the way on the left hand side of this screen, that are your two dues. And you would drag and drop that task from that column that's all the way on the left side, over into the next column for maybe in progress. And then you might drag and drop it when it needs approval. And you might drag and drop it when it needs to be scheduled. And you might drag and drop it when it's you know, been executed or it's been completed. That's the kanban style. So if you're a really visual person, a lot of creatives really like that style. Trello is really going to be the way that you want to go. But ClickUp also has kanban layouts that are available that you can set up. And if you're a little bit more hierarchical thinking, if you like your lists, and you like to bullet — that's going to be more Asana type view. In Asana you have lists, and tasks are nested within each other and it feels more like a bullet or a numbered list. Asana has that functionality but, guess what ClickUp does too and that's one reason why I really, really like ClickUp is they have created the ability to make a layout view that really works for you depending on what you prefer. So they have kanban style board, they have these more lists type boards, they also have Gantt view for any of my project managers out there, they have a lot of different functional functionality around the type of views that you want. So that is one reason that I really love ClickUp. Sometimes just looking at things in a different way can be so helpful to see it from a different angle.

They also have these great dashboards that can give you some information really quickly at a glance. So it could say the total number of open tasks that you have, or how overdue most of your tasks are by a certain amount of time, or how many open tasks each member of your team has. So that can be really helpful to to give you a bit of a bird's eye view, especially if you're using ClickUp, or your task management system, for client work, but also for your team.

Recurring Tasks

Another thing that I love about ClickUp, that I don't know, if Asana or Trello has, but ClickUp has amazing recurring task functionality. So not only can I set a task for something that needs to happen every day, every week or every month, right. But I can also say, I want this task to recur the second Thursday of every month, or I want this task to happen on the 10th and the 20th of every month or on the 12th of every other month, or yearly, or I want this task to work five days after the last time that I marked it as closed. And so that really powerful recurring task functionality is so great. Because as you start to scale, you have to systematise things and you have to really figure out what are the tasks that I am doing consistently? What are the tasks that I'm even doing a few times here and there just periodically, but more than once? Those are the tasks that you want to identify how much time you’re spending on and how you can automate or outsource those tasks. If you're going to outsource those tasks, you have to set up a system, a standard operating procedure around those tasks.

So by getting a really clear view and setting up those tasks to recur, you're going to be able to start thinking about and figuring out how often you are really doing this task. And you're going to save so much time in the long run, because that task is going to automatically come up at whatever different timeline that you set for it. And that's really where task management systems can really start to work for you. I don't have to keep these things in my brain, because I know as soon as that email comes in or that slack message comes in, it is getting put into ClickUp and that task is getting assigned either to me or to a member of my team. If a member of my team needs something from me, they put that task and ClickUp and assign it to me and give it a due date and give me all the information that I need within that task. And it starts to really tighten up your entire communication process and your task tracking process. And what this does is you are able to be super confident that nothing is falling through the cracks. Because I know if it's something I need to do or if it's something my team needs to do, it is in ClickUp. So I don't wake up in the morning and immediately say, “Okay, I need to do this and this and this and this and this.” And I also don't spend time in the evening when I'm going to bed thinking through, “Okay, I have to remember to do that thing tomorrow, that thing tomorrow, that thing tomorrow.” Because I know I'm confident that all of those things are in ClickUp. So I don't have to think about those things until I'm sitting down in the morning and reviewing my day and looking at priorities and what I need to do. And that is something that is so impactful for people who are really looking to build a business that makes them feel super supported, and isn't stressing them out all the time. Like we are not starting businesses to feel like it's another job. That's not what we want out of our businesses. That's not long term going to make you feel good about your business. That's how you get to burnout, right or that's how you have a successful business but you feel like you burn into the ground because it's just it doesn't feel good. And that is something that really is a game changer.

Team & Client Communication

As you start to scale, any tasks that your team members need to do are in your task management system. There's no miscommunication, there's no, “Oh, I thought she was going to do that”, “Oh, I thought he was going to do that.” And then things don't get done. And then you have clients who are pissed at you, or you are getting mad at your team members, because you thought they were doing something and you realise, “Oh, I didn't really communicate what I was expecting to them,” or “I didn't communicate a priority around it to them, or a due date,” or anything like that. So within each of your specific tasks and ClickUp, you're assigning it to someone, you're giving it a due date, you can set a priority, you also can move it through different statuses. So in ClickUp, we have different statuses depending on what area of ClickUp that task lives in. So if it's client work, it’s assigned to someone. And then if a member of my team is working on it, the person who is assigned to that task, they'll mark it as in progress. When it's ready for me to look at it, they'll update the status to 'Needs Approval’, and the link for me to review it is right in there. So I don't have to go anywhere else, I just click on that link, and it shows me exactly what I need. If I have edits, I can communicate that within the task via comments. And I can kick that status back into ‘In Progress’. Or if it looks good, I can move that task and set it to ‘Approved’, and then they would move that task to scheduled or completed or whatever. So now we don't need messages going back and forth, asking “What's the status on this? What's happening with this? Are you good with this? Are we done with this”, as all of that is being communicated immediately via the task status and the task priority. And you can cut down on so much communication time, so much back and forth, through really effectively and intentionally and purposefully using a task management system. They all have a lot of this functionality — ClickUp just happens to have the most functionality that I find the most useful, but they all have something or somewhat some type of this functionality. And so the biggest thing is just start using it, and you're already going to start to see those benefits. And that time saved.

Dependencies Feature

Another feature that I really love about ClickUp is dependencies. So I can actually indicate in ClickUp, here's Task A, here's Task B, but Task B cannot be competed until Task A is completed. Or we're waiting on something from Task A and I can actually indicate what we're waiting on from that thing. So if you have multiple team members working on multiple different pieces of a puzzle of a task or a project, this is again, a really easy way for everybody to know exactly where that task or that project is at. So if you have somebody on your team who's waiting to start their piece of the project, until the graphics are done, you can see right there, okay, what's the holdup? What's the problem here, everybody can see that status. And everybody can follow up when needed and get clarification. This also becomes super helpful if you are thinking you're becoming a bottleneck in your own business. These tasks, statuses, these due dates, and these dependencies will make it abundantly clear when you start to become a bottleneck in your own business. And it'll be a really easy way to think about, okay, how do I let go of this? Or how do I assign this piece to somebody else? Because I'm obviously dropping the ball. And my team isn't able to move forward at the pace that they are prepared to move forward at because of me, so how do I fix that?

It's also great if you're using ClickUp with clients, it's a really easy way for them to see, “Okay, great. I need to get XYZ to them before they can do their part.” So like I need to get images to them before they can create the ads, for example. Like that's something that we use with our ad management clients. They have to get their logo to us, their branding, and their images to us. They have to get those things to us before we can really get started building out their ads and really getting their campaigns running. So we can all see exactly what we’re waiting on.

I started using ClickUp when I was still a solopreneur. And it's still such a game changer. Because once I started building my team it was so easy to fold them in, right to all of my standard operating procedure, to all of my systems, to my task tracking and my task management, that was all prepared right there, it all lived online already, versus just in my head, or in a notebook. And so those are just a few ways that I use ClickUp to really run my business as efficiently and effectively as possible. Again, whether you have clients or not, that would be using a task management system with you, whether you have team members or not, or contractors or not, or if you're just a solopreneur — getting on a task management system is going to be such a game changer for your business, as long as you really use it religiously. Whenever something comes in, it's going into ClickUp. If you start to do that, you're going to start to see really great results in terms of your organisation, in terms of making sure things don't fall through the cracks. And that's the most important thing.

If you're ready to start really using ClickUp for your business, and you want to know how to set it up for clients and for your team members, check out my course called ClickUp for Entrepreneurs. It will set you up, walk you through exactly how to set up ClickUp for your business, how you can use it, permissions, adding team members, how to organise it, systematise it, set recurring dates, due dates, all that good stuff! So if you're really ready to jump in and start using task management systems to really run your business better this year, check out ClickUp for Entrepreneurs here.