There’s nothing like finding a new tool that you just know will make your life easier. If you’re anything like me, the excitement that something will save you HOURS of time each week, AND help keep you organized is enough to want to dive in head first.
That’s what we did. When we moved from Trello to ClickUp last year, we couldn’t wait to get right to it. We began building our boards, modeling them off what we used in Trello. And for the first few months, we used it just like Trello, which worked…but wasn’t really utilizing ClickUp for everything it offers.
We needed a way to stay organized, and we found that. But what we didn’t know was that ClickUp was a huge game changer for our business, we just needed to dive in to find out how.
So we want you to know what ClickUp can offer your business, before you jump in head first. Ready to get started?
ClickUp is more than just an organization tool.
While project and work management are 2 of the most critical, in our opinion, components to ClickUp, it is so much more than that. ClickUp also allows you to collaborate with your team, integrating many tools (think Zapier, Google Drive, Dubsado. Email & more) in the process. You can chat, create & store docs, keep a pulse on your goals, record looms, kickstart Zooms and so much more. The goal of ClickUp is to save you time because everything is in ONE place, and if you set it up correctly, it will be easy to navigate through it all. No more switching from 1 screen to the next to the next when you have it all in one place.
Use ClickUp’s views to change the way you organize your information, and your business.
Oh my, I LOVE this feature! Let’s say you and a teammate are collaborating on a project. You, as the business owner, prefer to view everything at a high level so you can see your entire timeline, all the items due and who is owning what. Maybe your client just wants to see what’s happening next week, and only what they are assigned.You can use the exact same list, just viewed differently through filters. No need to create multiple lists, you can view the same information in a ton of different ways. The list can even be shown in table format, timeline format, board format and more.
Get your team on board!
Like any new technology, getting buy in from your team who will be using it is key. Start this process early, by slowly introducing the concept and sharing just how game changing this can be. Show them the powerful tools like I shared in #2 above, give them bite size training videos, and let them play around with the tool. Adoption won’t happen overnight, but once they are able to try out the tool and customize it, they will likely learn to love it as well. Repetition and consistency are key! Don’t give up, keep your team accountable, and let them drive it as much as possible. Use it in team meetings to track agendas and to dos, and revisit this each week until they are comfortable maneuvering and sharing their screen.
Understand the hierarchy and language. Knowing what is called what will save you a ton of TIME, and headaches. The language may be different than other tools you used, so we created a blog that breaks it down for you. Linked here.
Think about how you want to organize your workspace before you start creating folders.
It’s so easy to just jump in and start creating all the things. But pause before you start, and determine what you want your ClickUp workspace to look like. Think of it as your hub for all things…if you just start adding folders & lists, without organizing them, then your ClickUp will look like a laptop with 20 million tabs & countless downloads on your home screen. Here’s an example of how we organize our folders, but many people also like to set them up for each department or team within their business.
Within our Admin Space, we actually have folders for each of our core processes or departments. This works for us, but your business may be set up slightly differently. The key is to plan before you get started, but know that it may change slightly as you dive in.
At this point, you are ready to get started! We suggest getting started with a brief training on how to navigate ClickUp. Want our FREE get started with ClickUp video training? Or want us to give your team a live training?
Shoot us an email at hello@cabotandmain.com and let’s get started!