8 types of data to organize in ClickUp (beyond just Tasks!)

I know many of you think about ClickUp as a task management, project management, or work management tool. And in that kind of way of thinking, when you see something like this appear inside your ClickUp account, you immediately think, ah, that's a task. But what if I told you that thinking about tasks, which are called tasks as tasks, is actually doing you a bit of a disservice? Yeah. Even though ClickUp started out as a task management tool and, and you see words like this throughout the ClickUp interface, reminding you that it calls everything a task, you don't have to follow ClickUp's own terminology here. Some of the most powerful possibilities for building out structures and workflows and processes in ClickUp, some of the most powerful options rely on you to disassociate ClickUp tasks from being tasks at all. What I want you to think about is that each task name is just a row in a spreadsheet, and each column, each custom and standard field, is just a column in your spreadsheet. For example, let's picture that this is our spreadsheet based on what I have laid out right here. Yes. You assume that every single row in that spreadsheet represents something I need to do. Cool. But if I change that spreadsheet and changed it to look something like this, well, it's still a spreadsheet. There are still rows, but they carry a very different meaning. But rather than each row representing a task, in this example, each row represents a team member. So in that spreadsheet example, a row could really mean all sorts of different things. A row could represent a task, a row could represent a client, a row could represent a day of the week. And that's why, just to be general enough and inclusive enough, in say, a spreadsheet, you might hear people call a row a record or an item. This is kind of a general noun to describe one row of information we. Now what I want you to do is to apply that type of item or record based thinking into ClickUp. Okay? So let's look at our ClickUp account right here. Just like in the spreadsheet example, each one of these rows represents a task. Fine, it's a task we need to do. But rather than making each record equal a task, let's instead make it equal to a team member. Then, just like our spreadsheet example, let's change each record, each row to instead represent something like a date. Just like the spreadsheet, all we're doing is replacing what would be considered the task name or the first column in a spreadsheet with something else. And that something else changes the entire meaning of the list, the entire meaning of the spreadsheet. Because what is a ClickUp task really? It's a title, it's a description, it has a few different fields and an area for discussion that doesn't necessarily have to be only relevant for tasks. Not at all. Now, if you're anything like me, you might be hearing this and thinking, okay, great, yes, tasks are records, tasks are items. Cool. But how do I actually apply any of this? Well, I want to give you eight possibilities, things to think about, of ways you could start using ClickUp for non task things. Example number one, use ClickUp to represent reference files. So this might look like having a list in ClickUp called reference files and each task is an important link, resource material, something like that. Maybe you know this YouTube channel and then have the link to that resource in a custom field. That would be one way to make a task represent something other than a task. And in this case that would be a reference file. The second example I have for you is to have your tasks represent roles. Now you guys, by now, if you've been watching this channel for a while, you know I am big on this one. But this might look like having a list called Roles. And, and every single task on this list represents a job inside your business. So this could be something like CEO, content creator, video editor. And each of those titles is a task name. In the task description you might have the job description. And in custom fields you might say what is that job responsible for? Or who is doing that job right now? What's the name of the person that would be using Tasks to represent roles? Number three and one I've talked about here on the channel before is Software. So once again, let's imagine that we have a list called Software inside our ClickUp account. And on this list, every single task represents a piece of technology. The task name would be the name of the software and the custom fields would let us track things like how much does it cost? Who has access to it? What's the link to log in? That's what we'd be tracking in this software list. Okay, so example number four is a subscription list, very similar to a software list, except rather than your task names representing a software, your task name is going to say a subscription that you have. So a task might say Climbing gym membership, A task might say Netflix. You might have a custom field to say how often you pay for it, or a custom field to say what is the amount? Number five is our automation database. On this list, what we do is we'd have each task where rather than a task name, we would have the description of of an automation as the task name. So we might have a task or a record again that says every time someone joins my email list, send them onboarding emails. That could be one automation. And then we'd have a link out to our email marketing tool where the automation exists. We'd use this task to document how the automation works. Common questions, who knows how to use it, who has access to it, that kind of stuff. And if you are interested more in that automation documentation approach, have a whole video on it up here. So number six then is expenses. This is kind of a controversial one because ClickUp is by no means a bookkeeping software, but you can just like any other spreadsheet, manage some basic transactional stuff inside ClickUp itself. If you wanted to have a ClickUp task represent an expense, for example, it would look something like this where you'd have the task name represent the description of the expense, maybe a custom field for the amount and maybe another custom field for the link to the receipt or something like that. And that's how you would build an expense management system in ClickUp. Number seven here is to actually have ClickUp tasks represent human beings. Novel idea. This is a given. If any of you are considering building out a CRM in ClickUp, which I have a whole video about up here, what you would do here is rather than have a task name be a task. Once again, you'd have a task name be a person or company name name. So it might say John Doe. And rather than statuses like to do and complete, you'd have statuses like active and inactive. And again, this is going to be an essential structuring if you're going to do anything like team management and ClickUp, a CRM in ClickUp, an applicant tracking system in ClickUp, anything with people, this kind of structure is going to be essential. Last but not least, one that I've recently implemented in my own workspace is to think about tasks as events. So we recently created a list in our own ClickUp account called I think something like important milestones. Here, I'll show it on the screen. And basically I created a task to represent each significant moment in the business's history. Things like when did prices change, when did new hires come on, when were we founded, when was this new service started, that kind of stuff. This has been really helpful to keep everyone on the same page. And because we wanted to keep things quite simple, we built it directly into ClickUp. As you might expect here, our task names are the descriptions of an event, our due dates are when the event actually happened, and assignees and other fields aren't used too much here with the exception of comments which could be used for discussion. That, my friend, is eight different ways you can use ClickUp tasks to not be tasks and this is just the beginning. Honestly, if you browse this channel you will find, I would say half a dozen, probably additional examples that I ran out of time for in this video. Ooh, and a quick tip when it comes to doing these kinds of strategies. I know I've been saying throughout this video, this is a no brainer. Go, go, go. One warning to you is that if you do use tasks to represent something other than tasks and you're working with other people, you need to tell them. I think this goes without saying, but clearly it doesn't because I'm saying it here. Write down what tasks represent okay, so whether it's in your list information, whether it's in your training handbook, whether it's in an sop, describe what each list in your ClickUp or folder represents. I know it feels like common sense and it's not a hard ask, but I can tell you there are many people who have created SOPs in ClickUp or reference files in ClickUp and they brought their team in and their team didn't understand what these things were and they just started checking things off and caused a bit of a mess. Had a lot of undoing to do. So definitely make sure you provide those instructions. And if you're feeling like a bit of an overachiever, I would consider pairing those with some enforcement automations. Okay, so if you don't know what enforcement automations are and how they can help you keep your workspace in line, this video is the next one you need to watch. So in conclusion, ClickUp tasks, we're going to start thinking about them as records or items. I haven't yet decided which is going to be the sexier name. Hopefully ClickUp decides for us before we just unofficially pick one. But ClickUp tasks do not always have to be tasks. The only limitation is your own imagination and the clarity you can provide your team to make sure everyone understands what is a task and what is representing something else. Thanks so much for watching this video and thank you to Tony P For suggesting this video topic. Really appreciate it. If you guys have any questions about this, please do leave it in the chat. And of course until next time. Enjoy the process. Sam.