Set up a ClickUp Space Just for Admin Trash
Okay, so the first thing that messed me up in ClickUp was how easy it was to mix administrative stuff with actual work. Like, I’d get a ping to update a client folder name or track an hours invoice, and boom — 20 minutes later I’m deep in a billing rabbit hole trying to find an old Time Doctor sync error from two months ago. Totally unrelated. Totally not on purpose.
What finally helped was creating a completely separate Space in ClickUp called Admin Holding Pen. Not kidding, that’s what I named it. Inside that space, I set up one list called Incoming and a few more categorized by admin type: Billing, Permissions, Docs To Update, Bug Reports. Anything incoming from Slack, email, or my own brain, I just quick-add it to the Incoming list with a few notes and leave it. No due date. Nothing urgent. Just acknowledged, not forgotten.
That mental buffer instantly stopped me from running off-task because now it has a place to land. The key here isn’t perfect organization — it’s having a drop zone that keeps admin stuff out of your main workspace brain. Like sweeping clutter under the bed but on purpose :). And yes, that list gets messy fast, but it’s *contained* mess.
So before you touch anything else: make your Admin Holding Pen and promise yourself you won’t fix typos in SOP docs while trying to prep client deliverables again.
Use ClickUp Dashboards for Admin Time Blocks
If you’ve ever opened ClickUp to “just check one thing” and ended up debugging five subtasks missing dependencies, you probably need to group your admin work by *when* not just *what*. That’s where making Admin Time dashboards actually saved me from floaty spiral mode.
Here’s what I did: I created a dashboard called Admin 90 and added a Card widget filtered by my Admin Holding Pen space. I filtered by Created This Week and added a Pie Chart widget showing task type breakdown (Billing vs Bugs vs Docs, etc). Then I threw in a Time Tracked widget to guilt-shame myself into not stretching a 15m insurance verification task into a morning snack break.
Then I pinned that dashboard up top and blocked my calendar with 90-minute admin-only time chunks. During those blocks, I only live in this dashboard. I don’t go poking around comments from marketing or template folders for new automations. I do exactly what’s in the chart.
Funny thing is, it started becoming kind of a satisfying loop. Like, hit 5 bugs fixed, done. Five doc updates, done. It’s tiny reward-fix loops like knocking out junk email, but you actually make progress.
Try not to overcomplicate this. The dashboard doesn’t need color coding or labels. It just needs to show your admin trash in a filter you can easily chew through without thinking.
Convert Interrupt Tasks into Repeating Batch Queues
This one took me time to realize, probably because I didn’t want to admit I kept manually doing the same 5 dumb ClickUp things every Tuesday. Stuff like checking if contractors submitted hours, exporting one specific folder report my ops lead always emails me about, or reassigning client stage statuses for leads that ghosted.
Here’s what actually clicked: I made a task called Tuesday Ops Sweep and replaced all the one-off versions of those to-dos with one recurring task. Inside that task, I keep a checklist:
– Review contractor time logs
– Export client folder tracking board
– Reassign old leads to follow-up status
– Check that week’s SOP doc changes
Then I made it recur every Tuesday at 8am. Now I dump similar tasks into this sweep checklist if they fall into the same theme. Instead of tasks scattered across spaces and lists, there’s one container. One click each week. One thing to focus on.
It’s basically the ClickUp version of bundling your errands into one grocery run. No multitabbing, no opening seven comments halfway through a Loom video. Just: go in, clear checklist, move on.
If the checklist starts getting too long or unfocused, I split it by theme — like one for billing review, one for client cleanup, etc. But keep each one under six items or it spirals. Learned that the hard way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Use ClickApps to Force Yourself Into Less Clicks
ClickApps are those little toggles in your Space settings that control what extras are available in ClickUp, like Custom Fields, Time Tracking, Tags, etc. Most people just leave them all on without thinking. I made the mistake of turning them all on because — ya know — options = power… right?
Nope. Turns out, more fields means more decision fatigue. I was creating admin tasks with two priority fields, three dropdowns, a reminders toggle, and a random unrelated automation that fired when I nudged the task slightly. And then, wonky stuff started happening. Comments from old subtasks started surfacing above new parent tasks. Yes really, no idea how.
So I went into ClickApps and shut off everything I didn’t need for admin-only spaces. I removed Time Estimates, Goals, and all unnecessary Custom Fields. I left just Due Dates, Custom Statuses, and one dropdown for task category. That’s it.
By stripping it down, everything got smoother. No rogue automations firing when I gave something a Due Today date. No mis-assigned targets. No confusion about what field to fill.
It made the whole thing feel more like a checklist and less like a CRM. When you’re just trying to approve a PDF change request and get back to real work, extra clicks really, really matter.
Make One Zap to Collect Admin Pings
So here’s what used to kill me: Slack notifications like “Hey can you update the PTO sheet?” or “Can you add this new client to ClickUp?” I’d scan it, think “yep,” and then five hours later, totally forget it existed. Nobody remembered to follow up. No task ever got made. Broken loop.
What fixed this was making a Zap using Zapier that catches Slack messages with a designated 🔧 emoji reaction (I use that to mean background admin work) and creates a ClickUp task into my Admin Holding Pen → Incoming list.
Trigger: Slack reaction added
Action: Create Task in ClickUp
I mapped in the message text as the task name, added the sender’s name to the description, and set priority Low by default.
Now when I see “Can you update the handbook?” I just react with 🔧 and forget it. It’s in.
Not perfect — Zapier occasionally fires twice, which means I get duplicates sometimes. I added a second step that checks if a similar task was already created in the last 24 hours (by comparing truncated text strings), but honestly, if one slips through, I just delete it.
That mini automation turned Slack into a task inbox. And let’s be honest — that’s where most admin chaos starts anyway 😛
Create Hotkey Reminders Right Inside ClickUp
I didn’t even know this was possible until about three months ago, when I was halfway through updating 9 different client onboarding task templates and realized — oh wait, I forgot to set a reminder for next Monday’s policy update.
You can hit T on any ClickUp screen to instantly open a new task modal. It’s a universal shortcut. From there, just type something like “Check Dropbox backup status Monday” and set the due date with the mini calendar.
What’s more game-changing though is when you combine this with task templates. I made a task template called Admin Reminder with a checklist called “Stuff I Forget.”
– Double check Google folder share perms
– Resync Slack automations
– Clear temp editor access permissions
Whenever I hit T, I can load this template, add a headline item, give it a soft Due Soon date, and stash it back into Admin → Upcoming.
It’s not elegant. It’s not automated. But it’s fast, muscle memory fast. That’s what keeps you focused.
If I feel like an interruption might lead me deep into an automation fix hole, I just hit T, make a quick reminder task, and go back to what I was supposed to be doing.
Pin Key Admin Views for Emergency Mode
There’s always that moment where something breaks. Someone’s spreadsheet disappears, a Zap fails silently, or a client starts emailing staff instead of using their portal. In those moments, your whole team turns into a panicky flock of geese, honking in chat and flapping half-complete screenshots at you. You can’t think, let alone search ClickUp.
What helped me survive that mess is pinning 3 views in ClickUp:
– Admin Today
– Admin Bugs
– Admin Unlabeled
Each is a Saved View on my Admin Holding Pen folder:
Admin Today → tasks due today or overdue
Admin Bugs → tasks with the “Bug” tag
Admin Unlabeled → tasks missing a category
When something chaotic hits, I click one of those. No thinking. No typing. I skim the homepage, check if it’s something already captured, and either assign it or file it. It’s the equivalent of having a bugout bag just inside your door — you know where the flashlight is without searching.
Even if you’re halfway through building an automation, you can stay anchored to reality because your escape hatches are pinned up top.
ClickUp lets you pin up to 5 views. Use 3 of them just for admin triage. Trust me, when one Zap starts creating ten duplicate tasks at 4am (yes, that happened…), you’ll wish you had it.