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Set up your personal Workspace

Whether you're joining an established Workspace or creating one for yourself, set up for success! ClickUp is flexible and customizable, everyone uses it a little differently.

This article walks you through customizing your experience of ClickUp.

Some of the following features have plan-based limits or are optional ClickApps and must be enabled by an owner or admin.

Create your own Workspace

A Workspace can be used by one or more people.

Whether you're a freelancer, managing a household, or planning a multi-city vacation, a one-person Workspace is useful for your to-do lists, action items, and projects. 

If you're solo, you'll be automatically set up with a personal Workspace layout.

If you're creating a new Workspace, get started by learning about our core ClickUp features.

Join a Workspace

Your organization will send you an invite to join their ClickUp Workspace. If you don't have a ClickUp account, you'll be prompted to sign up.

Your organization may require two-factor authentication or use single sign-on (SSO).

If you've joined your organization's Workspace, you can always create your own separate Workspace using the same account, or create a separate ClickUp account with a different email address.

What's my user role?

For Workspaces you've joined, the Workspace owner or an admin will assign you one of the following user roles:

  • Member: People in your organization who actively work in ClickUp. 
  • Admin: People who are responsible for managing the Workspace including billing, permissions, and integrations. You can think of an admin as a member with some extra permissions to manage the Workspace.

There are two other user roles:

  • Owner: The person who created your Workspace, or had ownership transferred to them. Each Workspace can only have one owner. You can think of an owner as a member with extra permissions to manage the Workspace.
  • Guest: People you've invited to your Workspace by sharing specific items with them. 
    On paid plans there are two types of guests, internal and external. Take a look at our article Charges for inviting members and guests for more info. 

Your Workspace may allow members to invite new members and guests. Learn more about invite permissions in our article Manage user permissions.  

Invite permissions are currently in beta. Once the beta concludes, invite permissions will be turned on by default for Workspaces on all plans.

Is your Workspace on the Business Plus or Enterprise Plan? Your Workspace may use additional custom roles. Custom roles are based on the above roles, but they can be modified with Custom Role Permissions.

What can I do?

No matter which user role you have, you'll share the same core features and ClickUp experience as everyone in your organization.

Even guests use the Sidebar to navigate the items that have been shared with them and do their work in tasks and Docs.

Your permissions likely vary throughout your organization's Workspace. A member can have permission to do a lot within their team's Space, Folder, or Lists and very limited permissions in the rest of their Workspace.

How is ClickUp organized?

There are six organizational levels. We call this the Hierarchy!

  1. Workspace: Contains your entire organization and all of your work. 

    GIF demonstrating the ClickUp Hierarchy.

  2. Spaces: Used to arrange your different workflows or types of work. Each Space has its own settings and can be shared with everyone in your Workspace or made private. 

    Do you have permission to create and set up Spaces? Read Intro to Spaces for more info! 

  3. Folders: Folders are optional, but are helpful for more complex workflows. Folders are added to a Space, and then Lists are added inside Folders to keep projects organized. When a new Folder is created, it automatically gets a List. 

    Do you have permission to create and set up Folders? Read Intro to Folders for more info! 

  4. Lists: Contain tasks of a similar type or that have a similar outcome or goal.

    Do you have permission to create and set up Lists? Read Intro to Lists for more info!

  5. Tasks: This is where you'll spend most of your time, it's where your work lives.
    Read Intro to Task view for more info. 

  6. Subtasks: Your team may use subtasks, more granular action items that are added to a task.  
    Subtasks are very similar to tasks.

    Does your team use subtasks? Read Intro to subtasks for more info!

    • Checklists: Simpler than a subtask, when you just need a to-do list.

How do I navigate my Workspace?

You navigate through the Hierarchy using the Sidebar on the left-hand side of ClickUp. 

Learn more about all the Sidebar.

You can reorder and hide Spaces to keep your most active Spaces at the top of your Sidebar.

Screenshot of the Sidebar.

Where do I change my settings?

Depending on your user role, you'll have access to the Workspace and account settings menus.

  • Account settings menu: All ClickUp users have settings that apply just to their personal ClickUp account.
  • Workspace settings menu: The Workspace owner and admins have access to settings that apply to the entire Workspace.


Screenshot of the personal avatar menu.

Ready to start working?

Now that you're familiar with the ClickUp Hierarchy and the Sidebar, it's time to start working and helping your team!

Create your first task, add your first comment, and write your first Doc!

Personal productivity features

Save time by keeping everything in ClickUp.

Prioritize important work

Stay on top of the most important work you need to do.

  • Tray: Minimize tasks and Docs so you can keep them in focus.
  • Home: View your most important tasks, events, and Reminders so you always know where your focus should be.
  • Favorites: Bookmark the Workspace locations you use the most.
  • Private views: Create any type of view that's just for you. You can group, sort, and filter tasks to display what you need to work on.

Communicate with your team

Keep in touch with the people in your Workspace.

  • Comments: Communicate with your team without leaving a task or Doc! Use comments to ask questions, get feedback, and format content with rich text, embeds, and attachments.
  • @mention: Tag your teammates in tasks, Docs, and Chat views anywhere in your Workspace. You can also mention tasks, Docs, and locations!
  • Chat view: Add a Chat view to a location to talk about work outside of specific tasks and Docs. Or get social and chat about your weekend plans!
  • Clip: Sometimes a short video is all you need to understand a process. Record videos of your ClickUp Workspace right from your browser.
  • Voice Clips: Record and send a quick message instead of typing out a long comment.
  • Email in ClickUp: Send emails from tasks in ClickUp to communicate with other teams in your organization who haven't started using ClickUp yet. You can also send emails to people outside your organization, including your customers and vendors.

Collaborate with your team

Everything in ClickUp happens in real time. Work on tasks together or asynchronously using these features. 

  • Docs: Collaborate with your team to create amazing content. Or use comments to get asynchronous feedback on a policy or project charter.
  • Whiteboards: Use Whiteboards to collaborate and ideate. Add internal and external content, including tasks.
  • Proofing: Do you work with videos, images, or PDFs? Centralize feedback and expedite approval processes by assigning comments directly on task attachments!
  • Integrations: Learn how to use other apps in ClickUp.

Get even more productive

There's a lot to learn in ClickUp. Here are several easy-to-use features that help you work more efficiently.

Try our ClickUp apps

Along with working in a web browser, you can use ClickUp on your computer or mobile device.

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