ClickUp is an app I seriously love. It has so many features that I find useful. I’ve you’ve read my earlier posts on the app (To ClickUp or ToDoist – That is the question & To ClickUp or Todoist – that was the question, THIS is the verdict) then you will know it is an app I have been back and forth on. I have realised why. I love ClickUp but it is seriously Over Powered.
It took an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to make we fully appreciate what had been bugging me about the app. Captain Sisko is telling his crew about the new Starship they have been given to combat the growing threat of the Dominion. The ship is the USS Defiant. Described by Sisko as over-powered and over-gunned for a ship of it’s size. She nearly tore herself apart when they tested the engines at full power.
This is ClickUp.
Over-Powered and Over-Gunned
Don’t get me wrong, the power of this app is impressive. To quote Sisko again – “she may have flaws…but she has teeth”. But let me illustrate my point of all the different ways that you can capture information into this app. I accept that some of them have different purposes, but across the board you will see that there is quite a bit of overlap.
- The basic task
- A reminder that sits in your app’s inbox
- Creating a ClickUp Doc – imagine a slightly less powerful (but not by much) Notion page. In fact, each Doc has its own side bar of pages and sub pages.
- Within this you can have checkboxes
- A note pad for quick notes available at the press of a button
- Within this you can have check boxes
- Notes can be converted to Docs or Tasks
- The description of a task is basically the same as a doc
- Sub-tasks within a task
- Checklists within a task (separate to sub-tasks)
- Comments within a task
- Description box for a list
- Comments for a list
- and no doubt I have missed some…..
That’s just getting basic information into the app. In addition ClickUp includes things like:
- A Time Tracker
- Dashboards
- in 3.0 a customisable home screen
- Integration with your calendar to provide a daily agenda
- Ability to integrate with gmail to email from within ClickUp Tasks
- Mentioning people etc in comments, notes or Docs works effectively like a Chat app.
- A whole goal setting functionality
- Whiteboards and canvases
In terms of organisation of things you have:
- Spaces
- Folders for lists
- Lists
- Then you have custom fields for your lists that apply to items in your lists
- Custom filters and views
- Including lists, tables, boards, timelines, Gant views, mind maps, workload & calendars. There is even a map based view which I have not tried but you can add a location field to your lists and see your tasks geographically.
- In your Home Screen you can set a ‘line up’ of task you want to tackle in order
- You can minimise tasks to a special task tray within ClickUp giving you easy access to them
- You can embed files from Google Workspace or a twitter feed or a custom url if you want. This means you can view Google sheets within Docs and Tasks
- You can create relations and rollups. Link Tasks, create dependencies etc.
- They have recently introduced task types so different items in your lists can be a different type of thing
You get the idea. There is so much you can do. I love ClickUp but it is seriously Over powered and over gunned.
What this means is that for most things you might want to do with the app, you have a number of different ways to do it. The risk here is that without discipline in how you use the features, the app could ‘tear your system apart’ if you use it to its full capacity. Did I note that thing down as a task? Or a reminder? Or is it a comment? Is it in the notepad? Where did I put it?
When it comes to organisation I find it very hard to believe that it will make you more effective to fully utilise every aspect of the app. Some of the features are only really useful in team settings and applications.
You see why I say over powered and over gunned.
But I still love the app
She may have flaws…but she has teeth. The point is that ClickUp does everything I need it to, which ToDoist does not. It works out of the box which Notion does not. ClickUp doesn’t require that I build the functionality before I use it. It doesn’t require two apps to manage tasks, projects, content and goals. It has just enough structure built in to it, unlike Notion, that the need to constantly tinker to get it working just the way you need it to is not really there.
The point is, you have to decide which ‘guns’ you plan to use and what you plan to use them for and then stick to that decision to prevent the app from tearing your system apart. So, I say again, I love ClickUp but it is seriously over powered…but I still love it.
