Imagine a parallel world where you had endless time and resources at your disposal. You could drive ambitious projects, pursue endless priorities, and do it all stress-free.
Unfortunately, that’s not how things work. As a project manager, you’re managing multiple projects and priorities at any given time.
You’re always under constraints: of time, resources, and everything else.
To see all your projects reach the finish line, you need to be ruthless in how you manage them.
We’ve put together a list of the top 3 project management software to manage multiple priorities and projects, despite the accompanying chaos and obstacles.
Top 3 Project Management Software to Manage Multiple Priorities
- The Best PM Software to Manage Multiple Priorities — At a Glance
- What Should You Look for In Project Management Software to Manage Multiple Priorities?
- The Best Project Management Software to Manage Multiple Priorities
- Other Notable Mentions
- How to Manage Multiple Priorities Effectively (Tips + Best Practices)
- Prioritize Effectively with ClickUp’s Project Management Software
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe Best PM Software to Manage Multiple Priorities — At a Glance
Here’s how the top three project management software to manage multiple priorities stack up against each other:
| Tool Name | Best For | Key Features | Pricing* |
|---|---|---|---|
| ClickUp | AI-powered project management and collaboration | Task management and prioritization, AI-powered contextual intelligence, no-code AI agents | Free Forever; enterprise customization available |
| Asana | Project tracking and cross-functional team workflows | My Tasks, AI Studio, Portfolios, AI Teammates | Free; paid plans start at $13.49/user/month |
| Trello | Visual task management and collaboration | Visual boards and cards, Checklists, Butler automation, Power-Ups | Free; paid plans start at $6/user/month |
👀 Did You Know? At any given time, a project manager is working on several projects. They need superpowers to ensure the same level of focus and output quality across all of them. Because the cost of poor project performance is a colossal waste of investment—11.4% to be precise.
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for In Project Management Software to Manage Multiple Priorities?
When every task feels urgent, what project managers really need isn’t more project planning; rather, more clarity.
Here are some key features to look for in a project management tool to manage multiple priorities effectively:
- Prioritize tasks visually: Look for a project management software with priority flags, labels, or custom fields that show what needs attention first. This helps you manage task assignments and track multiple projects across multiple teams without confusion
- Use multiple views to evaluate work from different angles: Switching between List, Board, Calendar, and Gantt/Timeline views makes it easier to plan projects, regardless of their complexity, and see how shifting priorities affect timelines
- Track workload and team capacity: Choose a project management tool that displays team capacity and workload so you don’t overload the same people across multiple client projects or internal workstreams
- Set dependencies and automatic rescheduling: If one task is late, other tasks should auto-adjust. This helps reduce risk and supports risk management for high-stakes or complex projects
- Centralize communication inside tasks: Look for built-in collaboration tools that tie conversations, approvals, and files directly to tasks. Saves you ample time when you’re tracking multiple projects
- Automate reminders, handoffs, and updates: When priorities change, automations should update statuses, notify owners, and move tasks to the right stage—reducing manual effort to manage projects efficiently
- Seamless integrations: Your project management software should integrate with existing apps in your tech stack, like email, chat, and file storage, to prevent context switching when managing projects
🧠 Fun Fact: The word ‘priority’ originates from the Latin prioritas, meaning ‘first in rank or order.’ Historically, it was used in the singular, implying that there could be only one priority at a time. The plural form, “priorities,” became common only in the 20th century, when knowledge workers began juggling multiple projects, deadlines, and stakeholders simultaneously.
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe Best Project Management Software to Manage Multiple Priorities
How we review software at ClickUp
Our editorial team follows a transparent, research-backed, and vendor-neutral process, so you can trust that our recommendations are based on real product value.
Here’s a detailed rundown of how we review software at ClickUp.
Your client wants an update on last week’s deliverables, and your team is waiting for the feedback on a draft. You scan your project board, and can’t seem to spot the bottleneck.
That’s what a project manager’s nightmare is made of.
Here are the project management software with features that are specifically designed to manage multiple projects:
1. ClickUp (Best for AI-powered project management and collaboration)
ClickUp for Project Management is the everything app for work that combines project management, task management, and team communication, all in one platform—accelerated by next-generation AI automation.
Below are the key features of ClickUp’s project management tool that make it a breeze to manage multiple projects (and retain your sanity):
Stay focused with ClickUp Task Priorities
ClickUp Tasks become the building blocks of every project in your workspace. You can create a task for ‘Launch landing page’ and then break it down into subtasks like ‘Write copy’ and ‘QA test’ using this task management feature. Assign them to the right team members, add tags, due dates, descriptions, and even link them to each other.
To add more accountability, flag each task with one of the four priority levels offered by ClickUp Task Priorities. Pick from Urgent, High, Normal, or Low so your team always knows what needs attention first.
For instance, your marketing team planning a product launch can mark:
- Urgent: Fix checkout bug before launch
- High: Finalize ad creatives
- Normal: Schedule social media posts
- Low: Plan retrospective meeting
Tasks can be sorted by priority and time estimates, giving every team member a clear daily roadmap.
ClickUp Dependencies adds another layer of context. Mark a design task as ‘blocking’ development, and its priority instantly signals urgency to the right people. You can also save filters to create custom views, like showing only High and Urgent tasks due this week.
This video shows you how to prioritize tasks like a pro:
Work smarter with ClickUp Brain
Compared to a traditional project management tool, ClickUp Brain adds contextual intelligence to your project workflows.
It understands the context of your workplace and the multiple projects you manage.
ClickUp Brain is designed to connect tasks, docs, and conversations into one intelligent system. Here’s how to use AI for workflow management:
- AI Knowledge Manager: Instead of hunting through endless docs, just ask: ‘What’s the status of our Q4 campaign?’ or ‘Show me the client feedback from last week’s call.’ It’ll pull answers from tasks, docs, and chat instantly
- AI Project Manager: Automate tedious updates like writing daily stand-ups or progress summaries by asking it to, ‘Summarize completed tasks for the mobile app project this week’
- AI Writer for Work: Need a client update email? Brain can draft it in seconds, tailored to your tone and role. Prompt it to, ‘Write an email to stakeholders explaining why the release was delayed and what’s being done to fix it’ and voila ✨
Embedding ClickUp Brain directly into your workflow ensures that you spend less time chasing project data (delivery timelines, project risks, etc) and more time making strategic decisions.
This video shows you how to streamline project management with ClickUp Brain:
Automate priorities with ClickUp Automations
ClickUp Automations lets you build no-code rules that trigger actions across multiple projects. Using simple “if this, then that” logic, you can automate priority changes, assignments, status updates, and handoffs. No manual tracking needed.
You can set up automations to update priority or ownership when:
- A task moves to a certain status
- A due date is approaching or overdue
- A task is created in a specific list or project
- A custom field, like Priority or Client Name, is updated
Examples:
- Automatically assign a task to the project lead when Priority = High
- Move tasks into “Blocked” when a dependency gets delayed
AI Agents do the heavy-lifting for you
ClickUp Autopilot Agents take automation a step further by acting on priority changes as they happen. Unlike rule-based automations, these AI agents continuously monitor tasks, comments, and docs and then update priorities or notify owners based on context.
You can use a prebuilt Autopilot Agent or build a custom one for your workflow.
Use Prebuilt Autopilot Agents when you want quick, ready-to-use automation for common workflows, such as daily/weekly status reports or automatic updates.
On the other hand, Custom Autopilot Agents are the best choice when you need agents to follow your own logic (multi-step triggers, conditions, or workspace-specific rules) to manage priorities in a customized manner.
ClickUp key features
- Document processes: Keep SOPs, project briefs, and strategy notes in one place, always linked directly to the tasks they support using ClickUp Docs
- Streamline internal conversations: Use ClickUp Chat to discuss feedback, share updates, mention teammates, and get work done in the same project management tool
- Manage projects and work in real-time: Track urgent, blocked, and tasks needing approval across multiple projects with ClickUp Dashboards
- Visualize your workflow: Switch between 15+ Views to plan, reassess, and reorder priorities based on changing project needs
- Track time for better prioritization: See where your team is spending time, compare against estimates, and adjust priorities with ClickUp Time Tracking
- Visualize workflows collaboratively: Map dependencies, brainstorm ideas, reorganize tasks, and reprioritize in real time using ClickUp Whiteboards
- Integrate with your tech stack: Use ClickUp Integrations for seamless data transfer across the tools your team and clients use
ClickUp pros
- Customization features and flexibility that can scale with any team or project type
- Time tracking and workload management for optimal resource allocation in complex projects
- Detailed reporting and real-time dashboards for clarity across projects
ClickUp cons
- An extensive suite of features might overwhelm the new user
ClickUp pricing
free forever
Best for individual users
Free Free
Key Features:
60MB Storage
Unlimited Tasks
Unlimited Free Plan Members
unlimited
Best for small teams
$7 $10
Everything in Free +
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Folders and Spaces
Unlimited Integrations
business
Best for mid-sized teams
$12 $19
Everything in Unlimited +
Google SSO
Unlimited Message History
Unlimited Mind Maps
enterprise
Best for many large teams
Get a custom demo and see how ClickUp aligns with your goals.
Everything in Business +
White Labeling
Conditional Logic in Forms
Subtasks in Multiple Lists
* Prices when billed annually
The world's most complete work AI, starting at $9 per month
ClickUp Brain is a no Brainer. One AI to manage your work, at a fraction of the cost.
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (10,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)
Why it’s great for managing multiple priorities
With AI-powered project execution, ClickUp eliminates tool switching costs and centralizes task management. Work moves forward without you having to hunt for updates. It converts context into action by automatically tagging, assigning, and escalating tasks.
ClickUp pulls tasks, docs, timelines, chats, and AI into one Converged AI Workspace so every priority stays aligned to the same source of truth.
What are real-life users saying about ClickUp?
This G2 review really says it all:
2. Asana (Best for structured project tracking and cross-functional team workflows)
Asana is a task management software that brings your to-do lists into one centralized location. By connecting your work with your to-dos it helps you prioritize tasks effectively.
Unlike scattered sticky notes, Asana gives you a unified view of everything on your plate across multiple projects and teams.
The MyTasks view pulls together all assigned tasks into a manageable list. It also handles task relationships. When a deliverable affects multiple projects, you can multi-home a task instead of creating duplicates.
The Portfolios feature serves as mission control for project managers overseeing multiple initiatives. With the dashboard, you can see which projects are trending behind schedule and where your team might be overloaded before problems spiral out of control.
Asana AI embeds intelligent features directly into your workflow. AI surfaces insights about project plans, can answer questions about next steps, and generate summaries of the latest progress. The AI Studio allows you to build no-code AI workflows to automate repetitive tasks without dependency on tech teams.
Asana key features
- Use AI to write project plans and generate summaries of tasks, projects, or portfolios so you stay up-to-date without reading every detail
- Deploy AI Teammates that monitor project data, identify risks or bottlenecks, and suggest actions for you
- Plan capacity and balance workload using Resource Management to see who’s overallocated and shift priorities before bottlenecks occur
- Connect daily tasks to company goals using Goals and Reporting features so you manage priorities with impact in mind
- Create rules, forms, and automation to move work between stages without manual intervention, reducing friction across projects
Asana pros
- Flexible for complex, multi-user projects and resource planning
- Broad automation, templates, and integrations to reduce manual work
Asana cons
- Unless every update is tagged to each person, team members don’t see it, which defeats the purpose of shared project visibility in project management software
- Asana allows dependencies, but lacks automatic rescheduling, which is when you will need to explore other Asana alternatives
Asana pricing
- Free
- Starter: $13.49/month per user
- Advanced: $30.49/month per user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
- Enterprise+: Custom pricing
Asana ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (12,300+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (13,500+ reviews)
Why it’s great for managing multiple priorities
Asana ties together projects, dependencies, and workloads for easy visibility and quick adjustments. Layered views support tracking tasks at different scales, even as priorities shift. Automations and real-time updates ensure cross-functional collaboration without losing sight of goals.
What are real-life users saying about Asana?
From a G2 review:
🧠 Fun Fact: Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik discovered that people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. This phenomenon, known as the Zeigarnik Effect, suggests that incomplete tasks create a cognitive tension that keeps them top-of-mind, enhancing memory retention.
3. Trello (Best for visual task management using boards)
Planning and scheduling a single project is straightforward from a capacity perspective. But when several projects run simultaneously with a siloed view, tasks will soon pile up on your plate. Before you realize it, you’ll have three tasks to deliver at the same time.
The project management and visual collaboration tool Trello helps you proactively manage all these priorities and your capacity.
To understand how much your team is tackling at any given time, Trello has different views.
The Calendar View shows upcoming work so you don’t overload specific days or weeks. Dashboard highlights workload metrics like due dates and assigned cards to prevent bottlenecks.
Table pulls tasks from all boards into one sortable list. And Timeline maps tasks in a Gantt-style
You can add relevant resources, such as attachments and conversations, to cards. Centralize comments, status updates, and project conversations on cards.
Create advanced checklists to capture details of project tasks. Use Dashboards to track any set of tasks across your Trello boards, such as overdue tasks or projects, each month.
Trello Inbox AI parses Slack and Teams messages saved to Trello Inbox to extract due dates, priorities, and action items.
Trello key features
- Set up rules to automatically move cards, assign team members, or create checklists based on specific triggers with Butler, Trello’s automation tool
- Extend your workspace’s capabilities by connecting it to your existing tech stack with Power-Ups
- With Trello Inbox, you can capture to-dos from meeting notes, messages, emails, and voice notes
- Drag and drop tasks from your Trello Inbox or boards directly into your Planner
- Pre-built project management templates allow you to capture all details related to multiple projects in a structured way
Trello pros
- Intuitive interface that supports both mobile and desktop access for work on the fly
- Integrates with 200+ tools via Power-Ups
Trello cons
- Advanced reporting and cross-project tracking require paid Power-Ups
- Larger or complex projects often need multiple boards to stay organized
Trello pricing
- Free
- Standard: $6/month per user
- Premium: $12.50/month per user
- Enterprise: $17.50/month (billed annually)
Trello ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (13,700+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (23,600+ reviews)
Why it’s great for managing multiple priorities
Trello highlights project prioritization through visual cues, helping rapid change across boards. Automation and integrations streamline task movement as plans evolve. It’s especially effective for dynamic environments.
What are real-life users saying about Trello?
Here’s what a Capterra user had to say:
📮 ClickUp Insight: Only 7% of professionals say they rely on AI mainly for task management and organization. One reason could be that most tools only cover narrow areas like calendars, to-do lists, or email.
With ClickUp, AI stretches further. It connects your email, communication, calendar, tasks, and docs in one place. You can even ask, “What are my priorities today?” and ClickUp Brain will scan your workspace to give you a clear, urgency-based list. In doing so, ClickUp brings together the power of five or more apps into one simple super app.
Summarize this article for me pleaseOther Notable Mentions
Here are some other project management tools that prevent priority clashes:
- Monday.com: Lets you assign priorities, visualize workloads, and automate follow-ups across multiple projects. Timeline, Calendar, and Workload views surface capacity issues early so you can rebalance workloads
- Notion: Combines tasks, docs, meeting notes, and databases in one place so nothing gets lost in scattered tools. Linked databases let you see how tasks across projects relate, making it easier to spot shifting priorities and update them in one place
- Jira: For product and engineering teams, Jira uses sprints, backlogs, and dependency tracking to rank priorities. Roadmaps show how changes in one project affect others, preventing bottlenecks when managing parallel initiatives
- Smartsheet: A spreadsheet-style PM tool with Gantt, Grid, and Card views. Critical path tracking and dependency management make reprioritizing and rescheduling easy. Useful when multiple timelines move simultaneously
- Wrike: Real-time dashboards and status-driven automation make priority changes visible instantly. Workload Charts highlight overloaded teammates, while request forms route incoming work without derailing existing priorities
- Airtable: A database-style task manager that connects related projects via linked records. Views like Gallery, Kanban, and Timeline help you visualize shifting priorities and capacity across teams
- Teamwork: Built for agencies handling multiple clients at once. Time tracking, workload charts, and project-level profitability help teams prioritize revenue-driving work
💡 Pro Tip: According to the ‘Peak-End’ rule, people judge experiences largely based on how they felt at the peak moment and the end, not the total duration. In task management, completing key priorities early or ending the day with small wins can boost motivation.
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Manage Multiple Priorities Effectively (Tips + Best Practices)
Tools can only take you so far. When you’re struggling to organize and manage work across multiple projects, these strategies will help you keep everything on track:
1. Save your workflows and templatize them
Picture this: You’ve just finished the marketing campaign for the last quarter of the year and you’re getting ready for the next year. You don’t remember how you set up the reporting dashboard.
On top of it, you’re managing multiple projects. You’re not sure what the initial components are, so how do you replicate the campaign without missing crucial tasks and details?
✅ Solution: Templatize important workflows. This way, when you start a new project, simply plug-and-play the data. Ramp up faster and more efficiently.
💡 Pro Tip: Use ClickUp’s Multiple Projects Status Report Template to keep all your projects accessible and organized.
You get an eagle-eye view of all necessary details, including project phase, health, cost, quality, and timelines. With tagging, sub-tasks, priority labels, and multiple assignees, you get notified whenever there are delays and blockers.
2. Prioritize work ruthlessly
When you manage multiple priorities, everything feels urgent.
You jump between tasks, respond to messages, and attend meetings. By the end of the day, your actual priority work hasn’t moved.
✅ Solution: Apply the Ivy Lee method.
At the end of each workday, write down the six most important tasks for the next day, prioritizing them in order. Focus on completing them one at a time, moving down the list only after finishing the previous task.
⚒️ Quick Hack: At the end of the day, when your brain is mush, let ClickUp Brain make your life easier. Use it to:
- Speak your priority list instead of typing it. Brain MAX’s Talk to Text captures your voice and turns your thoughts into tasks
- ClickUp Brain searches across tasks, chats, docs, attachments—even inside PDFs—and brings the answer to you with its Enterprise Search. You don’t waste time sifting through project data and get what you need instantly
- The AI Notetaker joins calls automatically, transcribes, extracts action items, assigns them to the right person, and links them back to the project
- Get rid of the AI sprawl with the one app for all your work. Brain connects priorities across tasks, docs, messages, spreadsheets, meeting notes—even third-party apps—so the most important work stays impossible to ignore
⚡ Template Archive: Free Multiple Project Tracking Templates to Run Your Projects Like Clockwork
3. Define goals, plans, and expectations at the beginning
Without a standard project planning process or a clear project management methodology, every new project gets managed differently.
The result? Deliverables become inconsistent, project managers reinvent the wheel, and teams operate from different assumptions. No one has a unified view of priorities, ownership, or timelines.
✅ Solution: Plan the process and responsibilities even before the project starts.
At the project level, outline goals, milestones, dependencies, and feedback/approval steps.
At the program level, establish team-level objectives and show how they connect to business goals.
When expectations are defined upfront, team collaboration gets easier and execution becomes repeatable—especially when your task management software supports templates and project kickoffs.
⚒️ Quick Hack: Once you outline goals, milestones, deliverables, and ownership in your project doc, add AI Cards to your ClickUp Dashboard to keep those expectations visible and updated automatically.
Use AI cards to:
- Show the goal and project status in real time
- Drop an AI Executive Summary Card into your project dashboard to get a high-level snapshot of health, cost, timeline, and risk
- Use an AI StandUp Card in Home so every owner sees exactly what they’re responsible for today
⚡ Template Archive: Free Project Prioritization Templates to Organize Your Tasks
4. Balance workloads by looking at work across projects
When you plan each project in a different place, you don’t have a way to see all the work the person is doing across different projects.
You rely on the person to let you know if the workload is too little or too much. You only find out about it with missed deadlines or when they finally speak up. This kills the whole purpose of efficient resource allocation.
✅ Solution: The first step to solving this is managing all your projects in one place (hint: project management tool). Then, you will want to see all the tasks in each project and who they’re assigned to.
Based on this, you can remove or delegate tasks to keep projects on track and prevent burnout. But remember that not all PM tools include resource management tools or a workload view filter. So choose wisely.
💡 Pro Tip: ClickUp’s Workload View lets you visualize each person’s available capacity based on time estimates, story points, or custom effort fields. Each person’s capacity is displayed in red, green, or yellow, indicating their workload at a glance.
👀 Did You Know? ‘Multi-tasking’ is a misnomer. The human brain can’t perform two or more tasks simultaneously. Research indicates that when we attempt to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, our brains engage in ‘task switching.’ The increased demand on the neurocognitive systems supporting control and sustained attention leads to slower performance and more errors compared to focusing on a single task.
Summarize this article for me pleasePrioritize Effectively with ClickUp’s Project Management Software
Say goodbye to the chaos of competing with multiple priorities by implementing these simple yet impactful strategies.
When paired with a project management tool like ClickUp, you’ll be able to track project progress, stay organized, and hit project performance goals every single time.
To ace task prioritization, sign up with ClickUp for free.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
