10 Tips on How to Work Faster and Get Things Done With ClickUp

If you’re juggling a thousand tasks and your to-do list seems never-ending, but you feel eternally busy—are you actually being productive? 🤔

It’s not a trick question!

In fact, many folks in today’s business world describe productivity differently. A recent ClickUp survey of more than 1,000 U.S. workers asked how they define productivity in the workspace and three answers stood out:

The survey found 58% of respondents defined productivity as completing all of their tasks, 51% related it to feeling accomplished, and 43% said compared it to finishing more tasks on their to-do list. Whether it’s difficult big projects, trouble with time management, or too many administrative tasks, there are plenty of things that can get in our way of feeling truly productive.

And if you’re constantly getting trapped in this scenario, it’s time to level up your productivity game. There are ways to work faster without burning yourself out. So get started now by incorporating the following strategies into your daily routine to streamline your workflow and get more done.

Let’s dive in below! 🏊

10 Ways to Work Faster and Smarter to Get More Done

Working faster is all about finding simple shortcuts or using small tricks to get more done in less time. Most importantly, you need to adopt the tips that will work best for your workflow and process. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Instead, it’s about practicing good work habits and learning where you might be wasting time or even doing repeat work. That’s why we put together 10 tips on how to work faster so you save some of your mental bandwidth and sufficiently use your time throughout the day.

1. Automate your workflows with ClickUp Automations

Do you know what’s amazing? Automating your personal workflows. Trust us, it’s a game-changer and a valuable skill to know how to put work on auto-pilot. Imagine saving all that time and energy on repetitive tasks. And instead, you focus on the stuff different tasks that really matter—the creative, strategic work that truly showcases your talents.

Using automation tools also means fewer errors because you standardize your process and steps to reach project completion, so you’ll enjoy consistency, accuracy, and top-notch work. Who wouldn’t want that kind of peace of mind?

ClickUp’s automations feature allows you to set up automated workflows to eliminate repetitive work into a single task. For example, you can create an automation that assigns tasks to team members based on their roles or moves a task to a different status when marked as complete.

When you complete tasks with automation tools, you not only save time but ensure your projects stay on track by eliminating all the tedious work that can bottleneck projects down the line.

2. Use templates for consistency and efficiency

When it comes to working faster and smarter—use templates.

Who doesn’t love the idea of hitting the ground running? With the help of templates, you’ll have a solid starting point, so you can dive right into your project. Don’t waste time wondering where to start. Instead, grab a pre-made template, tweak it to suit your needs, and you’re off to the races.

Templates also promote consistency. No more worrying about whether your documents or presentations match the style of your previous work. With a customizable template, you’ll have a unified look and feel across the board, which not only saves time but also looks super professional.

Whether it’s a work breakdown structure template or a to-do list template, there’s something that you could use to keep everyone on the same page. You’re working with the same format, and using the same guidelines. Choose from ClickUp’s library of pre-made templates to customize, format, and edit to suit your needs.

3. Set SMART Goals and track progress in ClickUp

If you need help delineating your unimportant tasks and important tasks, so you know what needs prioritization, consider following the SMART goals format. It’s an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. 

Instead of setting vague goals like “I to save time on work” or “I want to be more productive,” SMART gals give a clear roadmap to success, so you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve:

• Specific: The goal should be well-defined and clear, so there’s no ambiguity about what you want to achieve
• Measurable: Track your progress and know when you’ve reached your goal
• Achievable: Set realistic targets that you can actually accomplish and align relevant goals with your overall values and long-term objectives 
• Time-bound: Set a deadline for your goal and give a sense of urgency and motivation to get it done

Using ClickUp’s Goals feature, you can create SMART goals and break them down into smaller, manageable targets, and organize them for easy access. By tracking and organizing your progress within the platform, you’ll stay focused and motivated as you see yourself getting closer to your goals much faster.

4. Use time-blocking features on your calendar

Time-blocking is a basic but mighty technique that can work wonders for your time allotted to specific projects or tasks. This productivity-boosting habit is all about scheduling dedicated periods of time—whether it’s hour or half-hour increments— for specific tasks. This time-management technique is a total game-changer when it comes to getting more done in less time.

Here’s why it’s so awesome. First up, time blocking helps you maintain laser-sharp focus. By dedicating specific blocks of time to tasks, you’re less likely to have trouble focusing on distracting emails, phone calls, or those tempting social media alerts on your cell phone. 

Plus, with a set timeframe, you’ll naturally work more efficiently to complete the task within the allotted time. It’s like giving yourself a mini deadline for each task, and we all know how deadlines can light a fire under us no matter if it’s a simple task or big project.

Time blocking is also fantastic for reducing decision fatigue. That’s why teams rely on ClickUp’s Calendar view to implement time blocking and schedule dedicated blocks for specific tasks. Additionally, ClickUp Schedule Blocking Templates can integrate your calendar with other tools like Google Calendar or Outlook. These templates help you maintain focus, minimize distractions, and ensure you allocate enough time for each task.

5. Harness the power of ClickUp AI

Say you’re drafting an article within ClickUp’s dashboard and need some ideas on how to start an introduction—and pronto! With ClickUp’s built-in artificial intelligence feature you can sift through the long list of ideas it generates for you once you prompt it. 

You can generate rough drafts, improve on an existing draft, or brainstorm for a task with the built-in feature. ⏰

Artificial intelligence is the future—it’s the next step up from automating your tasks. Incorporating it into your work management ClickUp dashboard has the potential to save you a ton of time once you ease it into your existing workflow. 

6. Break tasks into smaller chunks with subtasks and checklists

In ClickUp, you can break large tasks into smaller, more manageable subtasks or create checklists within tasks. This allows you to track progress more easily, and it’s satisfying to tick off items as you complete them.

Plus, you can assign different subtasks to team members, promoting collaboration and efficient task distribution. Add some automation to the mix and there’s no telling how efficiently you can get through tasks, finish projects, and make updates as needed. 

7. Prioritize your workload using Custom Fields and Priorities

Sometimes, you wish you had a bit more control of your productivity dashboard. For that, there’s ClickUp Custom Fields, which allows you to add additional information to tasks or set more granular priority levels.

ClickUp’s highly-customizable custom fields make it easy to create formulas, detail priorities, view and assign tasks, and so much more. Custom fields are great for building large dashboards when you need a bird’s-eye view of everything—without the need to get into the weeds.

For example. prioritize tasks by using the Priority feature, which allows you to assign tasks as Urgent, High, Normal, or Low priority. Tackling high-priority tasks first ensures that you’re making progress on your most important goals.

8. Limit distractions with Focus Mode

ClickUp’s Focus Mode helps you stay in the zone by minimizing distractions while you work on a specific task. When you enable Focus Mode, you’ll be prompted to set a timer for the duration you want to work without interruptions. 

The mode will hide unnecessary information, allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand. Plus, you can integrate ClickUp with website blockers or use its built-in time-tracking software to measure your productivity.

This is especially useful when you’re trying to power through written content, memos, blogs, emails, guides, and anything else that needs writing using ClickUp Docs.

9. Delegate tasks effectively with team collaboration features

ClickUp’s robust team collaboration features make it easy to delegate tasks and share information with your colleague in Whiteboard views. Why do it all yourself when you don’t have to? 

Assign tasks to team members based on their expertise, add comments to tasks for clarification, or use the Chat feature to communicate seamlessly within the platform. That saves you a bunch of constantly switching back and forth. 🤓

Not to mention it’s an awesome way to stay focused, because you aren’t having to context switch constantly. By delegating tasks, you can focus on your highest priorities and manage your workload more effectively.

10. Review your work habits with reporting features

Who says reporting and analytics are just for project management and hard numbers? ClickUp’s productivity tools allow detailed reporting for valuable insights into your work habits. 

Use features like Time Tracking, Box View, and Velocity Charts to identify trends, spot bottlenecks, and discover areas for improvement. The beauty of it all is that it can all happen within your dashboard—which is also highly customizable. 

All your information, automation, reports, notes, and tasks stay in one place. Centralizing all your most important docs, tasks, and reminders not only saves you time, but it also makes working easier. 

Regularly reviewing your autosaved reports will help you refine your strategies, stay on track, and ultimately work faster.

How To Do More In Less Time

By integrating these 10 tips into your daily routine and using the power of ClickUp, you’ll be well on your way to working faster and getting more done. The key is to be disciplined and continuously adapt your strategies to optimize your workflow. Group similar tasks to work in batches or schedule blocks on your calendar to avoid wasted time on unimportant tasks.

With the right tools and mindset, you’ll see significant improvements in your efficiency, leading to greater success in your personal and professional life. 

So, are you ready to supercharge your productivity with ClickUp?