Manually set how much effort a task takes on each day, week, or month, so your Workload reflects how the work will actually happen.

Effort is saved in hours. To enter effort as a percentage of an assignee's capacity instead, set the Workload Unit to Time Estimates with the % out of capacity option. ClickUp converts the percentage using that person's capacity for the period you're editing, then saves the result in hours. For example, 25% of a 40 hour weekly capacity saves 10 hours for that week.

Feature availability and limits vary by plan and user role. Learn more

Edit daily effort

Edit effort by day from Workload view or a task.

From Workload view

You can edit effort by day when the Day time period is selected:

1. Open a Workload view and set the time period to Day.
2. Click Modify work by day. A banner is displayed while you edit.
3. Click a task's effort cell on any day and type a new value, such as 2h. With the % out of capacity unit, type a percentage instead, such as 50%. The cell displays the percentage you entered.
4. Keep the Keep Task Effort toggle on to hold the task's total estimate steady while the other days adjust. Turn it off to let the total change and keep the daily values you enter.
5. Click Save to apply your changes.
   • If the change puts an assignee over their remaining capacity within the task's current dates, a prompt will display with options to extend the due date, keep the dates, or cancel.

Saved allocations follow the task's own dates, not the Workspace work schedule, so you can place effort on a non-working day such as a weekend or holiday. Effort on a 0-capacity day displays in red.

Moving, resizing, scheduling from the backlog, or unscheduling a task can remap the allocation across the new date range, so review a task's daily values after any schedule change. For more information, read Add and manage tasks in Workload view.

From a task

To edit daily effort from a task:

1. Open the task and click its Time estimate field.
2. Click the three lines icon next to the estimate.
3. Click the expand icon next to the date range to show the per-day hours.
4. Edit the hours for any day. The task's Time estimate field accepts hours only. To enter effort as a percentage, use Workload view.
5. Use the Keep Task Effort toggle to choose whether the total estimate stays fixed or changes as you edit.

Edit weekly or monthly effort

In the Week or Month time period, you can set how much effort a task takes in each visible period:

1. Open a Workload view and set the time period to Week or Month.
2. Click Modify work by week or Modify work by month. A Modifying work by week or Modifying work by month badge appears while you edit.
3. Click the task's cell under the week or month column you want to change.
4. A Time Estimate menu opens with that period's editable value.
5. Each visible week or month shows its own editable value next to the task's total estimate. Edit any period independently.

Turn Keep Task Effort off first. While it's on, changing one period adjusts the others to hold the task's total steady.

6. Enter a new value for a period, then click Save.

Capacity percentage and time estimates

When using the % out of capacity unit, each visible period takes its own percentage.

For example, a task can use 25% in one week and 50% in the next. Those percentages convert against the assignee's capacity for each week, so 25% saves 10 hours and 50% saves 20 hours against a 40 hour weekly capacity.

Your period edits are saved down to the task's daily allocations, so switching to the Day period shows how the effort was spread. A week saved at 25% shows 2 hours on each working day, and a week saved at 50% shows 4 hours.

Task bars stay on their actual start and due dates, they don't snap to the start or end of a week or month.