Every business is unique, with its own way of working. The tools you use should match your business, not the other way around. ClickUp is great because it offers many features and lets you customise a lot.
ClickUp can be tailored to fit any business, big or small. Whether you’re a startup, an agency, or a large company, ClickUp can be adjusted to meet your needs.
In this article, we’ll show you how to make ClickUp your own.
1. Start with the Right Hierarchy Structure
ClickUp has a basic structure:
- Workspaces – Your business environment
- Spaces – Big divisions (e.g., Departments, Clients, Projects)
- Folders – Group related Lists under a Space
- Lists – Hold tasks for specific projects or workflows
- Tasks & Subtasks – The work items
- Views – Ways to see your data (List, Board, Calendar, etc.)
Customisation Tip:
Make your Spaces match your business structure (e.g., “Marketing,” “Sales,” “HR,” or “Client A,” “Client B”). Use Folders and Lists to fit your ongoing projects or processes.
2. Custom Fields: Capture the Data That Matters
Every business tracks different data. With Custom Fields, ClickUp lets you collect and show what you need on each task.
Examples:
- For a creative agency: “Client Name,” “Campaign Type,” “Approval Status”
- For a software team: “Version,” “Bug Severity,” “QA Status”
- For HR teams: “Candidate Stage,” “Interview Date,” “Salary Expectation”
Customisation Tip:
Use dropdowns, dates, checkboxes, currencies, and more. You can also filter and group tasks by custom fields in views and reports.
3. Use Custom Statuses to Reflect Your Workflow
ClickUp lets you create custom statuses for each List or Folder. This way, you can use statuses that fit your team’s workflow.
Examples:
- A sales pipeline might use: “Lead,” “Qualified,” “Proposal Sent,” “Won,” “Lost”
- A content team might use: “Ideation,” “Writing,” “Editing,” “Published”
Customisation Tip:
Use colours to make statuses easy to see. This helps organise your workflow to fit your team’s process.
4. Views: Visualise Work the Way You Want
ClickUp lets you see your tasks in different ways:
- List View: It looks like a spreadsheet
- Board View: It’s like a Kanban board where you can drag and drop
- Calendar View: Great for planning and scheduling
- Gantt View: Perfect for seeing project timelines and how tasks depend on each other
- Table View: It’s like Excel, good for tasks with lots of custom fields
- Mind Maps, Workload, and More
Customisation Tip:
Make default views for different teams. For example, design teams might like Board View. Project managers might prefer Gantt or Workload View.
5. Automations: Streamline Repetitive Workflows
ClickUp lets you set up if-this-then-that automations to cut down on repetitive tasks.
Examples:
- When a task is moved to “Ready for Review,” assign it to a team lead
- Automatically change task priority based on due date
- Send Slack or email notifications when a task is updated
Customisation Tip:
Mix multiple automations for smooth workflows. You can also use ClickUp + Zapier or Make for more integrations with tools like CRM, calendar, or billing.
6. Templates: Build Once, Reuse Forever
ClickUp lets you create templates for:
- Tasks
- Lists
- Docs
- Entire Spaces or Folders
Examples:
- A new client onboarding template with all steps and documents
- A blog production workflow template for your content team
- A hiring workflow for open positions
Customisation Tip:
Turn recurring work into a template. This keeps things consistent and saves time.
7. ClickApps: Turn Features On or Off as Needed
ClickApps are modular features you can toggle on/off as needed. They include:
- Time Tracking
- Custom Fields
- Task Relationships
- Dependencies
- Tags
- Goals
Customisation Tip:
Turn on only the ClickApps you need for each Space or team. This keeps things clean and focused.
8. Goals, Milestones & OKRs: Align Work to Strategy
Use ClickUp’s Goals and Targets feature to track measurable objectives across teams.
Examples:
- Increase website traffic by 20% in Q3
- Close 15 new client deals in a month
- Complete 100% of a product roadmap
Customisation Tip:
Break big goals into smaller, measurable Targets. Link them to specific tasks to keep team efforts aligned with business goals.
9. Docs, Wikis & Knowledge Bases
ClickUp Docs let teams make shared documents, SOPs, project plans, or wikis. They can all be in one place, linked to tasks.
Examples:
- Create client briefs or campaign summaries
- Maintain SOPs for onboarding, finance, or support
- Collaborate on blog content or product notes
Customisation Tip:
Use Docs for every major workflow. Link them to tasks or goals for better collaboration.
10. Reporting and Dashboards: Measure What Matters
ClickUp Dashboards help you make visual overviews. You can use widgets like:
- Task completion status
- Time tracked per member
- Burndown charts
- Goal progress
- Custom field summaries
Customisation Tip:
Make custom dashboards for different roles. For example, for project managers, executives, or team leads. This way, they can track what’s important to them.
Conclusion: Make ClickUp Yours
ClickUp’s strength is its flexibility. It doesn’t make you change to fit the tool. Instead, it changes to fit your business.
By customising ClickUp, you can make a workspace that suits your team’s needs. Whether you’re a startup or a big company, ClickUp lets you design a system that grows with you.