209: Moving From ClickUp to Asana

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Brandi: [00:00:00] Project management software. We know we need them. We hear all the time, like they're going to help us with our daily to do stay organized, make sure we never miss a date, but there's so many choices. And for so long, I have told service providers and myself to use ClickUp and I've been a diehard ClickUp fan since I started my business and I've thrown shade at other platforms until the last 18 months.

When things have changed and two months ago, after having ClickUp for five years, we closed our account for good, we said goodbye to ClickUp and we made a switch and we tried a lot of different things before going all in on this one. So I'm here to share with you why we switched from ClickUp, what we were looking for in a project management software, and what we moved to.

And if [00:01:00] you're thinking about uh, maybe I should move, listen to this episode first before making any decisions. So let's jump on in.

Hey, hey, hey, y'all. Welcome back to the Serve Scale Soar podcast, the go to place if you want to start, grow, or scale your ad management business this year. I'm Brandi Mowles, and today I'm talking about project management softwares and why we moved from ClickUp and switched to the one we're current. Before we jump in, I just want to talk about, I posted on Instagram at the beginning of the year and I said, after five years, I've officially deleted our ClickUp account.

Would you like a podcast episode on why and what we switched to? And y'all, I've never had so much engagement. I had over 200 people vote. that they want a podcast episode. And my DMs literally exploded. I had over 75 DMs of people [00:02:00] asking which software we moved to, why we made the change, what we weren't liking.

And so I know that y'all want. This episode. And so I'm excited to share with you on why we made the transition and what we moved to and what we looked for and what we tried before making the switch. Now, I want to start this episode off by saying you do not need to switch. If you love ClickUp, continue to use it.

We use ClickUp for five years and we're obsessed with it, but things change. Softwares change, our needs change. And so if you're sitting there, you're either not using a project management tool, I highly suggest that you do. Or, you're kind of like, uh, I don't know what to do because ClickUp's not working for me anymore.

Or, I've tried ClickUp but I can't wrap my head around it. This episode's for you. And even if you love ClickUp and you're not looking to switch, still listen with the knowing that maybe I'll learn something new [00:03:00] about how I can use ClickUp in my business. But this is not meant to be a shiny object episode.

And that's why I was hesitant to do it because I don't want you switching just because I switched. But if you're struggling with what project management software you're currently using, This episode will probably help you out. So let's dive on in and talk about the main reasons why we made the switch in the first place. 

For about 18 months, I've really struggled with loving ClickUp. They've just been making a lot of changes and I wasn't loving where things were going. We had issues with the software being really slow, buggy, losing stuff, and Once they rolled out 3. 0. It was kind of like the final straw because a lot of our forms went Disappeared and all this time effort we had spent in putting together a project management software seemed like it was just like falling apart Or we couldn't find things and honestly, the new [00:04:00] interface was not simple.

My brain hurt just like looking at it. And so for the last 18 months, we've been trying out a lot of different things. And so we did Notion and that was just a time suck. Uh, if you're someone who likes to create, there is so many options to build Notion from the ground up and really get creative and do what you want with it, but that can also put you in this place of just wasting time, and that's where I found myself.

I don't think Janessa liked it at all. It wasn't really conducive for teams. And especially if you're thinking long term wasn't that conducive for teams. We also I was spending a lot of time playing in there, like designing stuff and all that instead of working. So I was using it kind of like a distraction and then Janessa didn't really like it.

And so I was like, okay, what are we going to go to? And a lot of my friends, my mentors. They use monday. com. And I was like, you know what? We don't like [00:05:00] ClickUp. We're not going to Trello. Let's try monday. com. And we used it for, I think, like six, eight months. Oh my gosh, y'all. We liked it in the beginning, Janessa and I, and after we actually started working in it, and I think that's the thing.

Sometimes you think you like something until you start working in it. I was like, oh my gosh, Notion's incredible. But then I saw what a time suck it was for me. 

So spending time on Monday. We were like, this is so great. But then we started doing stuff like trying to create templates Then we found out you can't create templates that have subtask, and we were like, whoa. That kind of messes up with our processes. We were trying to make it work with the software, but the problem was it didn't work with our brain, and things weren't really like connecting all together, like we had liked with Clickup and there was some robust features, but it was also missing some really key features, like some reoccurring tasks.

And so we were getting really frustrated in these little things that were important to us that we couldn't make [00:06:00] it work. So we gave that a go. And then I was like, you know what, let's just go back to ClickUp. So we went back to ClickUp and then, like I said, 3. 0 happened and it was just like a disaster. I was just like, I can't work in here.

And so we were working out of ClickUp. And I just stopped, like I stopped going into Monday, I stopped going into ClickUp, and I was just like, I don't even know what to do. And things started to drop, like I was missing out on tasks that I needed to be doing, because we weren't using a project management.

So I was like, we have to try something. I don't want to do Notion. I don't want Monday. I don't want ClickUp. And we got to this point where, in ClickUp, we had done a lot of stuff. We were trying to use all the features. The docs, the forms, the spreadsheets. And ClickUp has all these robust features.

But really at the end of the day, it's kind of like I tell y'all when you try to do too much, you're like the jack of all trades, the master of none or the Jill of all trades, the master of none. And I kept on going [00:07:00] back to, I'd read Basecamp, they have a book, and I read their book and they talked about how like they keep it so simple at Basecamp because they want to be the master of what they do.

And I think ClickUp started like that. But then they started trying to be super simple. so much more and have all these features that every single person was requesting. And sometimes we just need to say no to our customers and clients when they request stuff, just like I tell y'all. And what happened is they added all these features where it became really overwhelming and hard to navigate and they really weren't great at any of the features anymore.

And so with that, I was like, we need something that's simple, that goes back to , click up. We started out, uh, I was reading about it like three, uh, five years ago, maybe four years ago. And we want it to be simple, easy for our brain. And we got to this point where it was like, okay, we're either going to continue to use ClickUp or we just need to move to a different platform.

But we have to figure out something. Cause we're getting into 2024 and we have [00:08:00] to stick to something. And so I was like, you know what? Let's give Asana a go. I was watching a ton of YouTube videos on Asana and I listened to a Amy Porterfield podcast or something, she talked about Asana and I was like, Asana just keeps on coming up, but does it have everything we need?

So here's some of the qualities that we were looking for and what we knew after trying so many project management systems, this is what we need. We needed simplicity. We needed templates that could be created from main task and subtask, like that was really important to us. We don't want something that's super expensive, which I'm pretty sure that's why Basecamp was just out.

I think it's too spendy. We, Janessa and I both like to work from a calendar view, so we needed a calendar view, multiple views, everything connected. We needed some automations, like just basic ones that can kind of automate some of our projects for us. And then we had to have reoccurring tasks. I'm like robust reoccurring task.

And that's what we were, oh, and [00:09:00] forms, we needed forms. It wasn't like a deal breaker. We wanted forms, but if we had to go to use our air table for that, that was fine as well. So that's what we were looking for. So as I'm watching these videos, I'm like, Oh. I think Asana could be this and here's the deal. I used to Asana when I first started and quickly switched to ClickUp, but I remember liking Asana, but I think at that time I didn't have everything that I really wanted and I just went in on to ClickUp.

So we were looking and I was like, okay, let's dive in. And so far we've been using Asana for several months now, and I'm obsessed. I love the simplicity of it. I love the template tasks that we can do, make quick templates. I love that we can link to our Google folders. So we've been doing that and having everything in the task so we can quickly just get to where we need.

So for example, for our podcast production, we just. Add our folders into the task and then we [00:10:00] can quickly open them. So we're not looking around in Google for them. I love the different views. So when I go into a sauna each day, I have home, my task and inbox. I love the home because it gives me a quick dashboard of my tasks that are upcoming, the ones that are overdue, and the ones that I had completed.

And then it also tells me how many tasks I've completed that week, which is kind of cool. And I can go to month and also see how many tasks I've completed that month. So I really like that feature. But also on that home feature, I can see the projects that I've worked in recently. So quick access, and then I can also see task I've assigned, which I like this because it's actually made it easier for me to delegate.

So now all I have to do is hit assign task and I can assign it quickly to Janessa or someone else without leaving that homepage. So then if I see something up on mine that I'm like, Oh, I could assign, [00:11:00] I can quickly go in there. Or instead of dropping in slack and being like, Hey, can you take care of this?

I'm already on Asana and I can quickly assign that task to someone else. And I'm sure you could do this like by going into the project and everything with click up and stuff. But the fact that it's on my home screen makes it so much easier for me to delegate and actually do it. Because the thing is, if it's going to take me more work to assign someone to do it than if I just did it myself, I'm just going to do it myself.

And that defeats the purpose of delegating. So I love that I can see that. I can also see what I've assigned them that's overdue. And I can see what's completed. So I can see what they've completed. So I like that. And then there's a private notepad if I want to like, make some notes in there and stuff like that.

I can. Then under my task, I love that they give me different views. So mine set up to calendar view and I have everything color coordinated with our tasks. So like our growth team is green. So anything for growth is highlighted green. [00:12:00] Anything for delivery is an orange color for so like for our students and stuff like that.

Executive is blue and then with the growth since we're in the conversions for clients launch, that's all in bright pink. So when I log in I can quickly see what department am I working on and what are my daily tasks and I can move them around. I love calendar view so much. We had this in ClickUp. I do think that the color coordinating is a little bit easier.

Here that it was and click up and when we look at my teams So I have home my task inbox and then I can get down into teams which we have our executive team So that's gonna be really operation. I'm sorry. That's gonna be just like my stuff like goals things like that Then we have the growth team, which is going to be all of our marketing, our launches, the podcast, any organic marketing that we're doing.

And then I have delivery, which that is going to be like our [00:13:00] program. So conversions for clients, certified, serve, scale, sort, and one on one clients. And then we have operations, which has our operations and our business hub in there. So that's just going to be like things that we need to be doing. So clear out help scout emails respond within 24 hours.

Monthly we download our emails, so from in case anything were to happen to our email service provider, we have all of our emails saved somewhere. So things like that. So all of that's in our operations hub. And so what I love is when I get in here from the get all I see is Home, task, inbox, executive growth, delivery, operations.

It's so simple and my brain does not hurt and that's really important that you love where you are each day. And that is for us, our project management. So if you don't love logging into your project management, it's going to be way harder to actually show up and be there. So you want to love your project [00:14:00] management system.

And that's why it's really, really important one to find one that you really love the interface to, to put everything in there with dates and assignees and use it as a project management So like I said, in ClickUp, we were trying it to be like our documents and our Excel sheets and all this stuff. And that's not what it's supposed to be.

It's supposed to be a project management hub. So going into Asana, that's what we're using it for. And then we're using Airtable for our like spreadsheet type of data that we need. So managing our students and surveys and that type of stuff. stuff. We're going back to Airtable because that's what that's for.

Our day to day project management is through Asana and they do have forms. We are on the paid plan, but we needed the pay plan for templates, but there's definitely some workarounds where you can save your templates and not need the Paid plan. So most of you [00:15:00] all you would need to be is on the free plan Which is really exciting that you can do that.

So that is where we're at with our project management We have tried everything and all the things and we finally made the switch to Asana and we're really loving it So what I hope you And what I want to talk about today is the first thing, is how do you write down your project management system? I want to talk about how do you write down your project management system?

If you're struggling with your project management system right now is write down what do you need it to do? What are the big things you're looking for? And like I told you with us, it was simplicity clean interface. Templates that can be made from main task and subtask, not expensive, calendar view, simple automations, and reoccurring tasks.

So what are the things that you need it to do for you? And then you got to show up and you got to use it. You got to use it daily. Everything needs a date because if it doesn't have a date, it doesn't get done. And we want to fall in love with our project management system because we don't want things falling through the cracks.

And the only way to stay organized is to be using. [00:16:00] A project management software. So my friends, I would love for you to message me and let me know what project management software are you using and do you love it? Are you looking for something new? You can message me at Brandi Mowles on Instagram, and I love talking about this stuff and I can't wait to nerd out with you about it.

So until next week, my friends go out, serve your clients, scale your business and soar into the success you deserve.