I love ToDoist. As task managers go I think there is none finer that is truly cross platform. I think I would equally love Things 3 but I’ve never tried it as I have an Android phone and have always used a Windows PC in my paid work. My experience using OmniFocus, which is also Mac only given this, has put me right off. So right now I am considering ClickUp – ToDoist or ClickUp? Which will I choose?
You can find some other posts I have written about ToDoist here.
Given I love this app so much, why am I considering ClickUp? In short – managing projects and managing content. The combo of a notes app like UpNote and a task manager like ToDoist is a powerful one but there are a few things that this combo cannot do well enough for my liking. First, managing my content production process. ToDoist does come with a board view now but it is quite basic. This, combined with the lack of any kind of custom field in ToDoist beyond the labels/tags, means that organising and viewing the content creation process just does not do what I want it to. For this, I have used Trello or Notion as a combo with ToDoist and UpNote. So, the actual piece of content is planned, outlined and written in UpNote, the process from idea through to publishing is managed in Notion and ToDoist contains generic recurring tasks like ‘Write Blog post’. Even Carl Pullein, who is a massive proponent of minimising your number of apps and loves ToDoist more than anyone save Amir himself, uses Asana for his content production process.
Second, is all to do with managing projects. Having a project folder for tasks in ToDoist gets clunky as some projects will have been started and then paused or I will have planned out some of the tasks but may not actually want to work on them yet. Besides, I really do think the Time Sector System is a good way to go for task management.
Having all project related material in my notes app, including all project tasks, and only a simple ‘Work on Project X’ task in ToDoist is what Carl Pullein recommends. I like the idea but I have a few projects where I might need to do one quick task for it in a week and nothing else. For something like this, the ‘Work on Project X’ approach is too much faff. You need to click the link the notebook to open up the project notebook in UpNote, find the tasks list for the project, work out which task needs doing and then do it. So I tried copying and pasting tasks like this into to ToDoist. But this also has a bit of faff to it. You need to go through and manually find and copy/paste these across to ToDoist in your planning session and then remember to check them off in two places.
Then I also have gained much value in using Notion to plan when I will work on projects and the projects status. I can allocate projects to quarters and months with a couple of properties and then create filtered views of this. Doing this manually using tables or collapsible sections in UpNote or using labels and sections in ToDoist, just doesn’t seem to work as well.
So, I consider ClickUp. ClickUp can do everything that I am looking for. I can utilise the time sector system. I can allocate project tasks to project lists as well as this. I can manage my content in the way I would like to. I can plan my projects and my quarters and my months in ClickUp too. Basically, ClickUp does everything that I was using ToDoist and Notion for, all in one place and it provides some structure built in, with some aspects also built into the app and not requiring complex workaround and formulas to make it all work. And, I can combine all this with UpNote nicely into what I am calling ClickUpNote.
I love the idea and I am trialling this throughout May 2023. I will write all this up in more detail when it is done but I plan on sharing thoughts on this each week as I go. I am doing this now, as I believed I would get access to ClickUp 3.0 in April but the roll out has been delayed. In some ways it seems unfair to do this right before a major update to the app but anywho.
For today, following quite a long introduction and after only one week, I will share only my initial impressions in the form of things I am loving about ClickUp and things that are annoying me.
5 Things I am loving
- It is nice to have all of this stuff in one place. Not having to navigate Notion & ToDoist and UpNote for different aspects of my tasks is really helping my effectiveness. This isn’t really a positive of ClickUp, more just of having it all together.
- The user interface in general. I love ClickUp’s UI on the whole. There are just so many little things designed to make it easy to use when you are in the app. Keyboard shortcuts is a key one. There are so many and they are often just one letter. Pressing ‘q’ will collapse and uncollapse the sidebar, ‘n’ will open up the notepad, ‘t’ will create a new task.
- The relationship between lists, docs, tasks and the notepad. Tasks & Lists can be linked together via relationships. Docs (imagine Notion pages) can be located within a list as a view, within a task, within the sidebar or nowhere at all. You can mention Docs in task or list description or comments. The notepad serves as a quick entry point and anything captured here can be converted to either a task or a doc. Within a Doc you can embed views of task lists or you can select any text and turn it into a full task, located anywhere within ClickUp. Combined, this all has the potential to be incredibly powerful.
- The number and variety of features. ClickUp has a A LOT of features, but what I especially like is that you do not have to use them and if you do not use them, it doesn’t really feel like it’s a problem. You can link your calendar in and create an agenda for your day including events from you calendar and tasks from ClickUp, but if you don’t then it doesn’t matter. You can link everything together in a complex web of related tasks, lists, projects and goals. Or you can have a simple list. You can use start dates and due dates and custom dates but you don’t have to. It feels like the options are there, but if they aren’t helpful for you then they don’t get in the way. I really like this.
- Dashboards. In ClickUp you build dashboards from a variety of different cards or widget that you place together and you can re-size and move them around however you see fit. These can be reporting widgets, task list widgets, text widgets, embeds or chat widgets etc etc. This creates a space where you can direct your entire workflow from and is really powerful.
5 Things that I am NOT loving
- It’s a bit slow. ClickUp is slow compared to other apps I have used. I mean this in terms of the general app speed but also the way it works for the user. Creating a task using the shortcut requires you to choose the list it will be created in. You cannot set a default inbox. The fastest way to do this I have found is to type ‘/’ in the task name box to open up the command list and start typing the word ‘move’. You can then select move from the command list that appears. Next you have to type ‘inbox’ and select that from the list as it appears. This means that capturing tasks is slower. Capturing notes in the note pad or reminders using the ‘r’ shortcut is much faster, but then you have to remember to check ‘home’ for the reminder or your notepad for the note. I could give some other examples of this kind of thing as well. It is also slow to load the various lists and views compared to ToDoist.
- The offline mode seems a bit poor. I worked a day this week with sketchy internet. Whilst offline the functionality of the app is limited. You cannot load lists and tasks or docs or anything. You can create new tasks and reminders and you can track time and if you have saved any specific tasks to your task tray you can access them but that is it. You cannot see your work and you cannot do anything to it. This is a big problem I think.
- There are a few scenarios in which you accidentally do things you do not want to do. My biggest example is as follows. I selected 10 tasks in my ‘Do Today’ filtered view that were all tasks from a specific project list I had. I copied them to the clipboard and pressed cmd + tab to switch to a different app to paste them. Pressing ‘tab’ with tasks selected will make them a sub task of the task of the task above in the list. This happened to be ‘Sweep the kitchen floor’ and so these tasks became sub tasks of that mundane chore. It also moved them from my specific project list to my routines list. To correct this required me to change them from sub tasks to main tasks and then move them back from the routines list to their actual list. Imagine if these tasks hadn’t all been from the same place and I hadn’t known exactly where to move them to? You end up having to re-process and organise them all over again. This has happened a few times this week.
- I am not sure how to explain this but there seems to be a lack of clarity on how exactly they want you to use the app. This is a good thing on the whole but can lead to difficulty in some areas. When I want to capture a thought, an idea or a task and I am in ClickUp, I can use the notepad, reminders or create a task. Any of these things can be made tasks at a later stage. The trouble is that they all have slightly different functions and capabilities. Notes can become tasks or docs, reminders can be given a date and become a task, tasks can be turned into lists etc. I can imagine all of them being useful in a more complex team environment but for just me, I am left feeling like the developers need to reduce the number of options they give you for capturing stuff and then increase the number of options for processing and organising that single source.
- But, what is crystal clear is that they do want you to use the app. Todoist’s global quick add brings up a box that you enter a task to and then it disappears so you can get on. ClickUp’s version takes you into ClickUp, you then add the task and it leaves you in ClickUp. For me, this just becomes distracting. But, if you go all in with ClickUp, you could in theory use it for everything and never leave. You have a notepad and docs for all your note taking and work needs. You can embed and even create google docs/sheets directly from within ClickUp. You can track time or chat with co-workers and even send email, all direct from within ClickUp. The feel that you get is that the developers are trying to lead you to use the app for everything and whilst you can do that, you will be missing out. You could, in theory, use it as a note taking app, but it is not as good at this as any note taking app on the market. The time tracker is good, but you need to make sure you are clear on what you want to track before you start using it as it only allows you track specific tasks within ClickUp – Toggl or Clockify are both better. For straight task management, the interface feel a little cluttered and it’s not as snappy as ToDoist or Tick Tick or any others I have tried. You get the gist.
I am going to stick with it for a month and see if the things I love outweigh the things I do not love…..I will keep you posted. ToDoist or ClickUp? Which will I choose?
