Tool Reviews & Insights

SettingUpTaskadeForSpeedWhenYouJustNeedToStart

I installed Taskade during a Saturday afternoon panic where I had 24 to-do lists in 10 different places and zero finished tasks 😅. I was trying to open a Notion doc while Trello loaded, and then remembered I had something in my Notes app and totally forgot what it was. Taskade’s promise was speed and simplicity. I didn’t even sign up at first — I clicked around the homepage and boom, a project opened. That already put it ahead of ClickUp in terms of onboarding.

Once you log in, Taskade drops you into a blank workspace with a blinking cursor. You type a task, hit Enter, and then hooo boy — you realize you just made a task. Then another. Then TAB for sub-tasks. SHIFT+TAB goes back. No waiting, no saving, no load spinners.

You can turn a task into a whole new project with a right click. Did I do this accidentally once and get trapped in three nested project layers? Yes, and I had to back-click like 12 times to find my way out. But for quick idea dumps or just emptying my brain, Taskade makes it feel like I’m writing a note instead of managing a database.

In a team setting, though, this raw speed can backfire. I had a shared Taskade workspace with my team where someone created a bullet list inside of a nested task, and that bullet list turned into its own separate tree — suddenly we had five projects that were just variations of the same checklist. There’s basically no friction — which is fun until it’s too much 😬.

Tasks don’t have statuses like “In Progress” or “Blocked” by default. You can tag or color-code them, but it’s very manual. There’s a way to create repeat templates with headings and bullets, and I built one with shortcuts for “Next Up” and “Blocked by Dependency,” but it took me a bit to realize you can’t filter by those unless you manually do it. That’s fine for solo work. Not great when three teammates drag the same task to three lists.

Want to do quick sorting? Taskade’s “Sort by Updated” or “Sort by Completed” views feel more like filters than true Kanban controls. If you’re working on a recurring weekly content sprint with 20+ tasks, it gets messy fast. Still, I kept coming back because it was just… faster to start.

ClickUpFlexibilityAndWhyThatCanBuryYou

I once tried to set up a ClickUp dashboard with nested statuses, automatic dependencies, and Gantt charts. Three hours in, I had made exactly zero tasks. But I had 14 custom fields, a color-coded space, and something called a Team Herarchy. 🙂

ClickUp asks a lot upfront. You don’t just “start a list.” You need to pick a workspace, which sits inside a space, inside a folder, inside a list. Every level has settings, colors, status types, permissions, and more. Onboarding feels like entering a CRM more than a to-do app.

BUT. Here’s the thing. When you’re running 3–4 big projects with cross-functional teams, ClickUp saves you days of spreadsheet hell. I built a content sprint board where tasks couldn’t be marked “In Review” unless the “Write Draft” task was done. When everything flowed the way it was supposed to, it was beautiful 🔥. Auto-assignments, dependencies, time estimates, even automation that tagged a Slack channel when deadlines slipped.

Then I accidentally duplicated a custom status called “In Review” and renamed it to “Reviewing” in another folder.

Suddenly, two tasks with the same context looked totally different places based on someone else’s filtering. We lost an article for two weeks because it lived in a subfolder we didn’t check.

ClickUp is not kind to the distracted. I had 10 tabs open across 3 ClickUp workspaces and at least twice I updated the wrong version of a task because the filters looked identical. Their Quick Switcher (CMD+K style menu) helps a bit, but it still pulls in archived spaces unless you uncheck that setting — an option which is not where you’d expect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Overall, ClickUp shines when you know exactly how your workflow works. It can enforce order. But if your process changes month to month (or mid-week), the rigidity backfires.

RealTimeCollaborationOnBothCanGetOutOfHand

With Taskade, you’re entering Google Doc-style territory. Every person editing a task can do it _at the same time_, and changes just overwrite live. This is cool when you’re brain-dumping ideas together in a shared session. Less cool when someone deletes the checklist you just made and adds a new one right under it while you’re staring at the screen wondering if you imagined it.

One time I was watching a coworker edit a project and I saw a list collapse in real-time. They had turned it into a sub-project. I didn’t even know that was *possible* until it happened. There’s very little safety net. No confirmations. Just instant state changes.

ClickUp has better accountability for editing history. You can see who touched what, when. There’s even a full activity feed per task, though it gets buried under icons and menus. You can restrict changelog visibility, too. I once had to restore a full task list version from their version history during a campaign because someone bulk-moved 200 tasks into the trash using the wrong filter. We found it — but it was two hours later.

For fast collaboration that feels like a shared doc: Taskade wins. For structured team coordination with rollback options: ClickUp.

MobileAppExperiencesAreTotallyDifferent

I’m not even gonna sugarcoat it, Taskade’s iOS app is fast. Like, way faster than almost all productivity apps I’ve used. I can be halfway through brushing my teeth and open my iPhone, tap a workspace, and jot down a new newsletter idea — before the mouthwash even kicks in.

The UX is tight: The + button goes right into a bullet point. Very few taps, no modal traps. You can even voice dictate into tasks with minimal formatting issues.

ClickUp’s app, by contrast, takes a good 3–4 taps before you’re typing anything. Tap Workspace, then Space, then List, then the + button, then fill out the custom fields (or skip them, but you’ll forget and get scolded later). It behaves more like a Jira dashboard crammed into a phone screen.

Worse, some automations just don’t trigger on mobile. For example, on web, we had a rule that changed status to “In Review” once a checklist hit 100%. But when I did the last checkbox on mobile, nothing fired. Turns out, the automation only ran when syncing from desktop 🤦.

So I’ve defaulted to Taskade when I’m on mobile and just need to think out loud. ClickUp only works well on phone if you’re just reading, not doing.

AutomationsAndIntegrationsCanBecomeBlackBoxes

ClickUp has built-in automations, but they’re kinda shady. Not shady as in malicious — shady as in you can’t always tell what’s happening. I’ve had rules that say “When tag added, change assignee” and… nothing happens. Digging through their logs is painful.

I once had a Zapier connection misfire *twice* from a ClickUp trigger because it sent duplicate webhooks for one status change. Zapier ran the same Slack message twice, causing confusion in a client thread. I had to add a delay and a filter to catch duplicate task IDs — which is absurd when you think about how that shouldn’t need to happen.

Taskade… doesn’t really do native automations. It’s closer to a scratchpad than a database. You can connect via Zapier, but the triggers are super limited. You mostly get create/project or task-based triggers, but no field watchers. Want to know when a tag changed? Can’t do it.

So you’re better off using Taskade as the upstream brain dump, then pushing useful data into ClickUp (or Airtable) once it’s structured enough.

Quick sanity checklist for ClickUp automations:
– Test rules with dummy tasks before enabling team-wide
– Use filters or task IDs in Zapier to validate triggers
– Avoid circular rules (status change → rule triggers → same status change)

UsingBothActuallyWorksIfYouMapTheFlow

Right now I’m using Taskade as my idea scratchpad — fast, stupid, no shame. It’s collaborative, but I don’t expect structure. Every morning I brain dump 10 half-thoughts. Some become outlines. Some die :).

Then once I formalize a task — say, record podcast #12 or write blog draft — I move it to ClickUp via manual copy, or sometimes via Make webhook push. I did try having Taskade send tasks into ClickUp directly, but without tags or statuses it’s a mess. Better to human-triage.

I’ve even used ClickUp to track errors *in* Taskade. One sheet we maintain says “Check if Taskade’s checklist templates still have indentation — bug repro from March.” That’s how wild it’s been.

They serve completely different mental states:
– Taskade = thinking, mind-mapping, journaling, “what if we…”
– ClickUp = deliverables, accountability, Gantt, dependencies

Don’t force either to become what it isn’t.

PermissionsAndTemplatingShowTheScaleDifference

If you’re building internal templates that need to be reused with tight control — like a quarterly campaign kickoff or onboarding SOP — ClickUp’s templating system is 100x stronger. You can save every aspect of task setup, including assignees, dependencies, due dates, and field values. I click once, and boom: 40 tasks with staggered deadlines auto-generate.

Taskade has templates, but they’re like text snippets. No field logic, no relative dates. They’re basically project outlines you reuse. I love them for personal rituals (weekly review, one-on-one notes). But I wouldn’t use them for cross-team rollout.

Permissions are another story. Taskade’s sharing is Google Docs-style: Share the workspace, or invite to a project. Easy. ClickUp? Let me put it this way — I had a folder with five different permission levels depending who you were. One designer could see subtasks but not comment; another could see tasks but couldn’t drag them. Example table:

| User Role | Can View | Can Edit | Can Comment |
|——————|———-|———-|————–|
| Content Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Guest Reviewer | Limited | No | Yes |
| Freelancer | Yes | No | No |
| Admin | Yes | Yes | All |

It gets confusing fast. And hard to double check. Taskade’s model is simpler — and that matters when you’re onboarding a new intern on the fly.

YoureNotCrazyIfYouKeepSwitchingBetween

There are weeks I live inside Taskade. Then a project gets big and I regret it. Then I rebuild the exact same template in ClickUp. Then a week later I forget what folder I’m in 😐. That’s just how these things go.

Don’t feel like you have to pick a “side.” These aren’t competing tools. One is a notepad with collaboration superpowers. The other is a full operations platform that will micromanage you harder than your middle school math teacher.

Use what gets your task out of your head in that moment. And maybe breathe. You’re not the only one building systems you forget five minutes later. 😛