5 Manual Tasks ClickUp Can Do in my Operations Agency
ClickUp has become an invaluable part of my business, and many of my clients’ businesses too.
Once you start realising all of the different manual tasks it can (literally) take off your hands, you can never go back to running your business without it. These are my 5 favourite tasks to delegate to ClickUp, which work for me and so many other business types - both creative and service based.
Which kinds of businesses need ClickUp?
I personally use ClickUp every day in my operations agency, and it’s especially strong if you have a team of people.
But really, ClickUp is useful for anyone who has a process - I’ve designed builds in this platform for florists, copywriters, photographers, creative agency owners and service based businesses.
The potential uses are many and varied, making it helpful whether you’re a solo business owner, outsource tasks to a VA, or have a small team of subcontractors.
5 Manual Tasks ClickUp Can (and Does) Replace in my Ops Agency
These are the 5 things I use ClickUp for daily, saving me and my clients hours of manual admin time and a fortune in Post-It notes.
Delegating tasks to a team
There are multiple ways you can delegate and assign tasks within ClickUp, and it’s really powerful for helping with project management. I personally create a list for each of my team members and add all their tasks in, and they’re assigned automatically and given a due date.
ClickUp also makes it easy for team members to ask questions without being in your email inbox all the time, using the comments section with tags.
I can also pull out different reports to see where everyone is at with everything, filtering the lists by either project or team member - it’s easy to see at a glance if anyone’s behind on anything, and how their activity levels are.
What I really love about ClickUp is that you can get really specific on how you want to see things, with the ability to filter and change things to see everything at the level you want.
I work a lot with agencies, sometimes consisting of 5+ team members (the business owner, a project management, a virtual assistant, subcontractors…), and ClickUp is a really slick way to keep everybody on track and on task and have at-a-glance oversight on projects.
2. Content Planning System
My entire content planning system lives in ClickUp, including my social media schedule, planned emails and blogs, each within its own subsystem. You can start with things in draft status and have them assigned just to yourself and then, when you’re ready for your VA to take your draft and upload it into your email platform, for example, it can be reassigned and status changed. You can then approve and change the status again so it moves along through your workflow.
I also worked with a client to make a system where high performing social media posts were automatically signalled to be turned into emails, by using a star rating system and automatic task duplications.
One of ClickUp’s greatest strengths is the ability to be creative with how you use it - you’re not stuck with rigid automations or limited options. There are also various views available, with my personal favorites being kanban or calendar, helping me keep a visual oversight on when all my content is being posted.
Find out more about how to use ClickUp to create your social media content.
3. Project Templates
The third manual task that ClickUp can take over is guiding you through your projects - no more scribbled notes or holding everything in your head. When a client books your service, all of the internal tasks that have to happen within that project are stored in a template. It’s everything outside of sending invoice reminders and update emails, because those things live inside Dubsado.
Find out more about how I can help you with Dubsado design for your business.
In some cases you may wish to house email updates within ClickUp if, for example, you need your team to be able to see exactly what has been sent and when. Similarly, if your team member worked on a task and needed to email your client, they can do it from ClickUp as you with a template.
Most of all this feature ensures you don’t forget anything. I’ve done countless Dubsado builds, but I still rely on my project management template to make sure I’ve checked everything off. Human brains weren’t build to remember everything, all of the time, and it’s easy to drop the ball on a bad day if you don’t have your process written down somewhere.
Even more importantly, this also means every client gets the same amazing experience with you every time. Consistently good processes are what ultimately build your reputation and earn you rave reviews.
Your templates can also be updated - if someone asks you a new question and you think it warrants an addition to the project workflow, you can go in and add it. This means your process improves over time, making your life easier and your client experience better.
It works for creative business owners as well as service based ones - I once added this feature for a florist who needed to remember to take buttonholes out of the fridge on the morning of a wedding!
4. Booking Subcontractors
ClickUp is also really good for helping you book your subcontractors for client projects. I recently worked with a client on a ClickUp build and we added this feature, where once her clients have signed her contracts she can go in and look at an availability tracker. Every 3 months her team members all receive an email asking about their availability, which pulls through into the tracker.
She then cross-references the project dates with the tracker, helping her decide who is available to be on her team. She then sets off an automated workflow where her project manager is notified to book the team, and they proceed through a booking process.
5. Creation & Development Hub
Where are you currently storing all of your ideas for new projects, offers, emails, website updates, additions to your process…on pen and paper? It has to be somewhere, and ClickUp can help you swap scribbles and misplaced notebooks for an easy-to-manage central business hub for your idea creation and development.
Many people find themselves with a Notion page, an Asana board and a book full of notes, but everything you have stored there can happen in ClickUp.
ClickUp vs Dubsado - Which One Do You Need?
For a detailed breakdown of who needs which one and when, you’ll want to watch this video breakdown.
In a nutshell, I always say that Dubsado great for your client admin - it takes enquiries, books projects, onboards people and sends contracts & invoices - but it isn’t the most robust project manager.
For some businesses it works fine with its native to-do list, but when you move into a higher level of delivery, get busier and acquire team members, ClickUp is my recommendations for managing your projects and business as a whole.
If you don’t have any tech tools like this in your business at the moment, here’s how I’d help you choose:
If your struggle is around contracts taking you ages to create, invoicing needing chasing up constantly, and losing track of enquiries - Dubsado is your best bet.
If it’s more that your behind-the-scenes work feels messy, you can’t keep up to date with your team and your processes are scattered, ClickUp is going to be the platform of choice
If you already have a CRM in place such as Honeybook or Moxie, you might be happy to stick with it and just add ClickUp to your tech stack.
Sometimes people come to me wondering why they should get into ClickUp when they already use Asana or Notion, and it’s important to note that they are not the same thing.
The capabilities of ClickUp are so much more advanced and work in cleverer ways for your business.
Explore my ClickUp build services, and save the pen and paper for when you’re feeling analog out of choice, not necessity.