Switch Your Blog Workflow From List to Kanban
I resisted switching to Kanban boards for months because I swore the ClickUp list view had everything: columns for stage, assignee, publish date, and all these little custom fields I thought I needed. It looked so organized… until it wasn’t.
The real problem? I could never see what was *stuck*. Articles that were sitting in editing (but not moving) and ones that were due last week kind of looked the same unless I filtered, sorted, and manually tracked dates. I was constantly thinking, “Wasn’t I editing this post three weeks ago?” but ClickUp’s filter logic doesn’t show that sort of thing unless you babysit the filters.
So I dragged the whole thing into ClickUp’s Board view, which is what they call Kanban — you know, the horizontal columns where you drag tasks left and right. Guess what happened? I fixed three bottlenecks in under ten minutes 🙂
Here’s how I broke it up:
– Column 1: Ideas (half of which were just screenshots and title stubs)
– Column 2: Ready to Outline
– Column 3: Writing in Progress
– Column 4: Editing (sharing a column with angry comments from the editor lol)
– Column 5: Scheduled
– Column 6: Published (with a zombie face emoji on the status for some reason I can’t remember)
Once tasks started moving between these columns, it became painfully obvious when something hadn’t budged. That article about Notion templates? It sat in “Ready to Outline” for nine days with *no* movement. No one knew who owned it. It looked fine in the list view because it still had an assignee and a due date. In the board view, it stuck out like a post-it note taped to a wall that no one wanted to touch.
Create Statuses That Match Your Actual Workflow
ClickUp tells you that statuses should be things like “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” That’s cute. But if you’re managing a real content process, it’s more like:
– “Waiting On Feedback” that never arrives
– “Blocked By Reviewer” who is also on vacation
– “Needs Artwork” that no one requested yet
I learned that the default statuses totally hide your real friction points. When I was still using “In Review,” for example, that covered everything from minor typo fixes all the way to major rewrites. In Board view, 7 blogs ended up jammed in the same column, which told me nothing.
So I made custom statuses that reflected our real (and messy) flow. And not just one set. In ClickUp, each space or folder can have its own workflow breakdown, so I made a specific set just for blog posts:
“`
Brainstorming → Outline In Progress → Ready for Writing → Waiting for Edits → Needs Artwork → Scheduled → Published
“`
Each move from one column to the next only happens if the previous step is fully done. Like, “Needs Artwork” literally means don’t schedule it yet, because the image dimensions for the banner haven’t even been decided.
We also added a temporary status once: “Rewrite Requested.” It wasn’t part of the original plan, but it helped. Having that semi-red status emotionally prepared the writer that their first draft was headed for the trash bin 😛
Add Custom ClickUp Fields to Track the Chaos
The first time I realized we had five blog posts all due on the same Thursday, my stomach flipped. Turns out, ClickUp’s native due date filter doesn’t help unless you manually scan the calendar. And if you’re just scrolled into a list or Kanban board? Good luck catching overlaps unless you squint at the tiny dates.
Custom Fields saved me. Here’s what I added:
– A Date Picker for “Publishing Date” (so I could separate write deadlines from when it goes live)
– Dropdown for “Content Type” (blog, case study, landing page)
– People field for “Assigned Writer” (different from task assignee, which was usually me)
– Checkbox for “Needs Social Promotion” (because otherwise, our marketing lead never knew when to step in)
In Kanban view, you can surface these under cards. So I clicked “Show Fields On Card” and enabled publishing date + content type. Now every card tells me exactly why it’s in that column. And sometimes why it’s *not* moving from that column.
Bonus tip: add a Label field with values like “Tech SEO,” “Quick Tip,” or “Evergreen,” and watch how quickly you start noticing that you’ve published five heavy comparison blogs in a row but zero bite-sized stuff.
Set Up Automations So Tasks Move Themselves
Okay, this is both incredible and terrifying. ClickUp automations can make tasks move from one status to another when something changes. For example, I set one up so that when a blog is marked as “Scheduled,” it automatically moves to that Kanban column, sets the due date equal to the publishing date, and assigns it back to me to double-check links.
I was feeling smart until I noticed two posts, both marked as “Scheduled,” had no due date set. Turns out, the automation failed silently. No error message. It just… didn’t run.
After some experimenting, I figured out the automation order matters. I had the “Update due date” *after* the status changed, but the triggering condition only fired once and didn’t wait for subsequent actions. Swapping the steps (set due date first, then change status) fixed it.
Also… don’t rely too much on the trigger “when status changes to ‘Published'” if you sometimes drag the card manually. If you move a task into Published via drag and drop, but the automation is set to fire only if *Clicked*, it won’t trigger. Learned that the stupid way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Use Filters to View Next Week Only
There’s something psychologically helpful about seeing just next week’s posts in Board view, nothing else. I apply a filter like this:
– Due Date is on or after [next Monday]
– Due Date is on or before [next Friday]
– Status is not equal to ‘Published’
This gives me a five-column Kanban with only the things that actually matter next week. Everything else is technically in the backlog — I can hide it. You wouldn’t believe how much cleaner that feels compared to a giant list.
We even saved this as a ClickUp View and named it “Next Week” so the whole team could live there. Bonus: this turned into our unofficial meeting agenda for our Monday standups. We click into cards directly, make comments about blockers, and drag things forward *right there* rather than jotting items in a separate doc.
Bulk Move Blog Posts Out of Limbo
Ever had 12 blog tasks sitting in “Outline In Progress” and forgotten who owns what? Yeah. When this happened to us, nobody wanted to click into them one by one.
ClickUp has a hacky workaround:
1. Switch to List view temporarily with the same Folder or Space
2. Apply a filter for tasks with status = “Outline In Progress”
3. Use the top checkbox to Select All > Bulk Action > Change Status
Back in Board view, everything’s updated. So if you just need to clean up a bunch of stragglers after a messy month — or assign 8 unassigned tasks to a new intern (oops) — bulk actions save your sanity.
Oh, and you can bulk tag stuff too. We used this when tagging posts by Q2 theme, so all the AI-related articles got a “Q2 Focus: GPT” label added.
Build a Personal View for Just Your Blogs
Let’s be honest, most Kanban dashboards get too noisy once the whole team shares a workspace. I have one view that’s totally mine, and it saved me from status envy 🙂
I made a personal Board called “My Blogs Only” and filtered it by:
– Assigned To = Me
– Status is not ‘Published’ or ‘Archived’
– Task Name doesn’t contain [ClientX] — the blog series I’m not allowed to touch anymore
It feels cleaner, faster, quieter. Half the point of Kanban is focus anyway, so slicing out just your relevant pieces is huge. I even changed the card height to “Compact” to see more at once.
If you’re juggling content with five other responsibilities like I am… your brain needs fewer distractions. Literally one board with five rows and like 3 tasks per row. That’s it. That’s the clarity.
Catch Bottlenecks by Column Width
Serious tip a designer friend gave me: if your Kanban column is so full it needs to scroll, something’s wrong.
I didn’t even think about it, but yes — in ClickUp Board view, columns stretch by content. So if “Waiting for Edits” needs to be scrolled while everything else fits on one screen, that’s a signal.
Your eye will adapt to it like you’re reading a temperature gauge. Editor out that week? Column gets long. Writer blocked? Column stays short. It’s weirdly effective.
We once had 10 drafts waiting for artwork because the designer was buried in another project. I only noticed how bad it was when I scrolled sideways and saw his “Needs Artwork” column was a mile long. Not a single alert or deadline had flagged this. Just the *shape* of the board told the story.
That’s when you know the Kanban view is working — when it starts revealing things no spreadsheet or list ever will.