BTS of Online Business without the BS
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BTS of Online Business without the BS
Asana vs ClickUp - Streamline your business and increase efficiency with Katie Aleck
Today I'm joined by Katie, founder of Spark to Sprig, to talk about all things systems!
There are so many great takeaways in this episode, especially if you are wondering about different platforms, how to choose what's right for you, a little about what they're used for and we do a pretty in-depth comparison of two of our top favs - Asana and ClickUp!
Let us know if you have any questions after listening and what your top takeaway was (or the many you might have gotten from this one!) by reaching out to either of us!
ABOUT KATIE:
Katie Aleck is the founder of Spark to Sprig, where she works alongside small businesses and entrepreneurs to streamline behind-the-scenes operations and integrate the many moving pieces of their business. With a background in Organizational Leadership and a deep understanding of her clients' unique goals and challenges, Katie creates custom systems, offers tech and automation expertise, and provides strategic support, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on what they do best while enjoying the journey as their ideas spark to life. Katie believes you deserve someone in your corner who cares about your business as much as you do. Through personalized operations support and strategy, her mission is to support you in truly living your passions and bringing your business dreams to reality!
Connect with Katie here:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sparktosprig/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiealeck/
Website: https://www.sparktosprig.com/
Connect with me here:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamtaraleson/
Website: https://www.taraleson.com
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Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a guest with me and I am super excited to record this one because she does something very similar to me Well, basically the exact same thing and so it is so exciting for me to talk to someone that actually does the same thing as me, because I never get to. So I'm going to introduce you to Katie, and she is the founder of Spark to Sprig, and we are going to get into all things systems today and also talk about the differences and compare Asana and ClickUp, which you may not have heard of either of these things, you may not know a lot about them, but this is something like so important for your business and business organization, which I think way too many people think is not as important as they realize it actually is. So, katie, introduce yourself and we'll get into all the things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm excited to be here and talk with you about all things systems. I've had my own business now for about two years and I work with kind of behind the scenes operations, setting up, automations, tech. I love things like ClickUp Notion all different kinds of digital tools. I come from a background in healthcare so that has blended with some of my clients. But I work with a wide range of clients from the healthcare industry to service providers, coaches and kind of everything in between in the online space. So I'm really excited to be here today and just talk more about systems and delve into some of the processes for your business and what you kind of need behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so excited to do this because we just I don't get to very often and we had talked about this before. We had a chat and this was like a few weeks ago when we were talking about how, like, we never get to talk to anyone about this because there's not many people that really are interested in it. You know, it's just us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's such an important part of your business and it's really something that needs to be talked about and for me, it's really exciting to talk about. I know it doesn't interest everyone, but I think systems are so fun and it gets you get to do some really great things with saving your time, saving your energy and yeah. So let's get started. I'm excited, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's like that's the whole thing. People like come at this and they're like, oh, that's so boring, but it's because they don't realize, I think, what it can really do for you, and it doesn't have to be something that's boring, like you can make them exciting. There's so many things that you can do to make it like more exciting and not such a drag, and the benefits outweigh the boringness of all of it. I think.
Speaker 2:Definitely definitely, and it's really about you kind of said it right there about what works for your business.
Speaker 1:So if your business is more.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're looking for something more fun, you can make your systems to really align with your business and the way you want it to be portrayed. It doesn't have to be, as you know, ABCD, as you know, kind of boring, and you can make it more fun and add some pizzazz and have it be something you enjoy actually doing for your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So what would you say? Are your like top first top platforms that you work with all the time for yourself, and like businesses?
Speaker 2:So I definitely I love Notion and I love ClickUp for a few different things. Notion I really love it gives you kind of endless capabilities. It's really great for customizing hubs of different sorts. I love it. It's kind of one of those first systems that I like to set up for a lot of my clients is kind of a central business hub in Notion. It's a great source for things like that to store a lot of resources, kind of serving almost as a second brain for your business. Clickup love it for project management.
Speaker 2:I know you love Asana and we might delve into that a little more in a few minutes, but ClickUp's a really great tool for your business, as well A few others, email marketing, wise. Convertkit's a really popular one I've used and really like it's a great one if you're just starting out. It's user-friendly, it's very simplified, but it also is very robust. In my opinion, you can do quite a bit with it. And then some different kind of course creation tools, digital product tools, things like Kajabi, rivecart, to name a few. There's lots of different options out there, but those are a few that I've had more experience with recently. A lot of clients already were on those platforms and there's pros and cons to every platform. So it's really finding what works best for your business and really diving into what your needs are, what you are looking for, and then finding a tool that is cost effective and really getting at those goals in the best way you can for your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's the part that's so important is really finding what the best thing is for you. It's not just jumping on what everyone else is using or like the one that you've heard of is quote, unquote. The best or like is being promoted by so-and-so, like. That doesn't really matter. It's looking at your business and what you have going on, what you want to do, what you're offering, and looking at the platform that's actually going to support that.
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely, definitely, and I think that that alone saves you so much time in the long run, because it's something that you dive into it and it's helping with what you need right in the get-go, and then you can also scale with it. So it's something that's going to support you when you decide to do X, y, z thing in the future. So, rather than jumping on to the tool that you hear all about and everyone using maybe that's not what's best for what you have- and what your future goals are.
Speaker 2:So really taking that extra time upfront I completely agree with you is essential really, in my opinion, to picking the right tools for your tech stack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay. So let's get into because I do want to talk about Asana versus ClickUp, and it's not even really one is better than the other. They really do the same thing. It's, you know, organizing. I really think of them as organizing your business. How are you going to organize the back end of your business, all of your to-dos, all of the things that you need to get done in your business? And I don't know about you, but I find so many people have nothing like this. They're still using sticky notes, they're still using notebooks, they're like using a million Google docs and they don't have anything that actually organizes things for them, where they can go to and just see it all laid out, and it makes it so much easier.
Speaker 2:Yes, I completely agree and I completely echo what you say. I think ClickUp and Asana they do very similar things. It's just what platform do you prefer.
Speaker 2:But I think all businesses really need a tool like that, even if and I think a common misconception can be if you're a solopreneur or you have a very small team, you don't necessarily need that, and I think that's quite a myth, because these tools help you in all shapes and sizes and even when I started out as a solopreneur, that was something I had right at the get-go was I started with a project management tool like ClickUp or Asana and just to even if it's something as simple as kind of brain dumping ideas like it just opens up your mind for focus on so many other things and to organize on what your priority list is that day or where you need to be focusing to get certain things done and move the needle forward. And ClickUp and Asana are both really great tools for exactly that and to help you move toward those goals and to keep moving your business forward so that you can work on your business and not just in your business all the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and it's interesting because I did the same right from when I started my first business. I my first business was in fitness and I always had a sauna the entire time. I had it and my to-do list for business has always been in there and, like so many project boards and so many things, have always lived in there so that I know where everything is and I can actually keep track of what I need to get done. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't. I would forget.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and it really consolidates all that in one space, which is really nice. So, instead of having your tons of sticky notes everywhere and this is for this project and that project- you have one space where you can jump between them.
Speaker 2:You can connect them if needed. You can really see the big picture while looking granularly at all of the things you need to get done and having them in one place so your mind really can focus on other things. But you know it's all taken care of behind the scenes. You know that this next step in my project for you know this launch I'm doing, I have the date, I plan to do that and you know everything you need is stored right there and it's even really great. One thing I love that I use a lot in ClickUp is if you do have a team, even a lot of that communication can happen right within those projects. So if you're asking questions about something, if you're throwing ideas back and forth, that's all linked to the task, which is really nice because looking back and you're wondering, instead of having to go between platforms or look in Slack and see, oh, what were we talking about? What did that have to do with? It's all centralized, which totally game changer, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, I agree so much. And Asana, same thing. Like you can add comments in the tasks and you can keep adding them. So you can add comments in the tasks and you can keep adding them. So you can add team members to different projects so that you know you can have control who has access to what. So if certain people don't need access to certain projects, you don't have to add them in there, like if it doesn't make sense. You just don't add them to that project and then you can communicate right in there.
Speaker 1:You can see what certain people are getting done, what needs to. You know, move ahead before a certain thing, if people aren't kind of getting their stuff done, what needs to happen, and it. Also you can go into Slack, like you can be on a team meeting and you can connect the two. They integrate so that anything that you're talking about you can create a task right from there. So if you're in Slack, it can create a task in Asana for you. So it really like it integrates with so much as well. I don't know if ClickUp does that too. It probably does.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the integrations.
Speaker 2:That is really a big part of kind of smoothing out all those processes and I love that you mentioned that and between the integrations with other platforms as well as, I think, the automation that are built in already to these platforms.
Speaker 2:And I I'm not sure you might speak more on Asana, but from ClickUp I know there are lots of automations that you can have where if, for example, you have certain statuses of where a project is, when you trigger that project to be now, you know, in review, it could assign it to the next person automatically, it could change the due dates automatically. All of those workflows you can build right in the platform, which can really help you with your processes on the back end. Then you're not having to monitor projects and check in constantly because those workflows you have planned out in the background and they're happening. So your team always knows where something's at, what the next step is, and you're not having to kind of go and dig around to figure out what you need to be working on or what the next step of the phase is, which I think is another really powerful piece of these kind of systems.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and Asana also does that same thing with the workflows where it will move it ahead, and it does the exact same thing. It assigns it to the next person, it assigns the due date, all of that which is so true, like that is I just think, like, imagine how time-saving that is, rather than someone having to go in and check where it's at every time you know, remind this person that, oh, now you're, you're supposed to be working on this, make sure that it's done by this time. Every single time you have you know something that's going on, a launch or whatever it is it always just moves ahead seamlessly. And the other thing is you can always duplicate these for every single you know launch or whatever the project is every time, and just change the dates. Right, so it's the same thing over and over, which makes it even more time saving, because it's not like you have to go and build the entire thing again.
Speaker 2:Duplicate it, change the dates, it's done entire thing again, duplicate it, change the dates, it's done. Yes, yes, completely echo that. Like you do not have to recreate the wheel every time you are launching or building out a project plan or whatever it is in there. You can just rinse and repeat. You have templates built in. You create your great process from the get-go and we get to work for you the next time and duplicate it and you're ready to go. And that's one of the really wonderful pieces because then you have one tool that has all of those processes you've built out. All of those projects are ready to go.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes with tools like this that can be. There's so many capabilities and so many options that I think for those just getting started, sometimes that can be, while it's very exciting for us because we're in those day in and day out, I think it can be a little overwhelming to know how to get started. Where do you start? And I think, starting small, finding you know, one process, one project maybe, to build out. You don't need right out the get-go, all the amazing automations and all the custom fields you can build onto your projects and learn what works for you and tweak it as you go. But I think, just getting started in one of these tools if you don't already have one, or if you kind of learn what works for you and continue to build on it and improve on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what would you suggest? Someone starts with, like, what are your top, maybe top three, even that someone should start with if they're just starting on ClickUp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I definitely think that that, to a certain degree, is specific for each business. So one of my top ones is always kind of having like a central hub of some sort, whether you have it in your ClickUp portal or your Asana portal or wherever that is. That I think that houses some of your key resources, some of the key things you need to make your business run, whether it be a place to store your hex codes and your branding information, things like that. But other than that, some top lists would really be.
Speaker 2:I think it's important to really look at your business and find areas that you're using continuously, that you're constantly going back to, and maybe it's something that every time you do it, you're recreating it and you could build it in ClickUp, where it's there for you every time, as we talked about, you're rinsing and repeating. You're not recreating it each time, and so finding those very high touch projects or processes that ClickUp can really alleviate a lot of that time and energy for you. Where it's stored there, you can go back to it time and time again. It takes away some of that, you know, focus power for you to take elsewhere and continue growing in other areas. But that could look like things like maybe your content creation process goes in there, maybe your leads and networking go in there, maybe creating your digital products go in there. There's different ways you could go with it, but I think where those high touch areas are in your business, that could look different for different scenarios.
Speaker 1:For sure, yeah, I totally agree. I think it definitely depends on your business. For a sauna, always what I recommend everyone starts with is their like weekly to-do list, their like weekly to-do list. Add that in there and things that you are. You know you have to get done so that you can just see what you really need to do in your business to move the needle forward.
Speaker 1:Because I think when you actually spell that out and you're looking at what is going to make the difference, people are surprised at how many other little things they're adding in that they really don't need to be doing and how much time that can cut out. But also when you have a list there and you're not having to go into every day being like, okay, so now what? You just go to your list, you see what you need to do, you bang that out, you're going to save yourself time. It's the whole like decision fatigue thing. You don't have to be sitting there trying to make those decisions. Figure out what you need to do today. It's there, you follow your list, it's according to your goals. You know to move your business forward.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a great point and that's that's even for my own business. One thing that at the start of every week I have my list already built. You know, as you think of new to do's, you're adding them, and at the start of every week I go in and I prioritize and strategize what my week looks like from my to-do list in these platforms and that's exactly it. There's no decision fatigue that each day I start my day, I already know what my goals are, I already know what my priorities for those days are, and that's a great system to start with. And I know another thing you can do kind of that helps with. That is in ClickUp, specifically, and probably Asana as well.
Speaker 2:You can connect your Google calendar to those as well and you can look at it from a calendar view your to-do list with those built right into kind of anything you have in your Google calendar in between your meetings and all of that, which is a way I really like to see my to-do list, which is a way I really like to see my to-do list, and I think that exactly helps because suddenly you notice where those extra tasks are stacking up or what are those needle movers that are really helping you move toward those goals. And yeah, I completely agree, I think that's an additional great system to start up in ClickUp or Asana.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like that. So in a sauna what I always do I get all of my calls. Anytime someone schedules, I get them sent into a sauna and that way I can see exactly what my day looks like. So it's kind of similar and that way I can see, you know, the gaps that I have that I can fill with other things. So it's similar in that way. But I do.
Speaker 1:I love how you touched on like the prioritizing. That's so huge and that's something that I think, too, is a big thing for people, because oftentimes we're looking at it and it's like where do I start, or what's the most important thing to get done? At it, and it's like where do I start, or what's the most important thing to get done, and you can really, especially if you do this, like at the end of the last week or beginning of, you know, this week, or even on Sunday, take a little bit of time. That's when I like to do it. So then I can just go into Monday, start my week fresh and go at it, but sit down and actually prioritize and there is, you know, these fields where you can put in high, medium, low priority and you can just see and it takes the decisions out of it. It's right there. You know exactly which ones you need to get done and which ones. Can you know? Wait a little bit longer.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the big things when you prioritize, I think that really helps you really see where you should be prioritizing as well, because sometimes you have things in your to-do list that you think are very important but when it comes down to what is actually moving me toward those goals and when you're actually looking at everything from a big picture perspective when you are planning your weeks, I think it really helps you to notice how some things sometimes you think are, oh, these are such important tasks, but it's been potentially two weeks since I've decided they're high priority and it's not a deadline reason, week since I've decided they're high priority and it's not a deadline reason Sometimes. I think that helps you really figure out how to prioritize, to be moving more strategically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because you can go back and reassess these things, and that's the other part of this that I really like. When you're not using the sticky notes and the notepads and all of this, you can actually go back and see what you're doing because it's all documented. You have it all in there. You can go back and reassess everything, and that's the other reason I just I love having everything stored in these places, because you can always go and look at all of the things that you are doing. And I love it for especially for things like launches, because I do really like looking at the data and seeing you know what worked. What do we need to tweak all of that. But you can't do that unless you actually have it stored somewhere where you can go back and look again.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I agree I love these platforms for launches as well and I think pairing it with templates you've already created, pairing it with automations.
Speaker 2:And one thing I also really appreciate about for ClickUp, for some of these launches, is I don't know if you've ever played with or utilized like the whiteboard or mind map feature, if that's something in Asana so I really like.
Speaker 2:If you're doing funnel mapping or mapping out your workflows, doing that in the whiteboard feature, it really is a great visual way. If you're sending out, you know, a chain of launch emails, you can kind of visualize it in there and again, once you have it built out, once you can duplicate that whiteboard, you can use it next time and just tweak as you need. But you have it built out and it's a really great visual way because in ClickUp there's lots of different visual options you can do so. You don't always have to just look at things in a list or you know you can look at them in a board view, you can look at them in different ways for whatever works for that workflow. But that's one thing I really love is you touched on launches. That is a really great visual way to help you kind of build out maps with those pieces.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I don't think Asana has that one. It definitely has different views, like there's the list, there's the board view calendar, there's like Gantt, there's timeline, there's things like that.
Speaker 2:But I don't think it has whiteboard or mind mapping, so that's interesting. I may have to check that out in ClickUp. That makes me wonder, then. So another thing in ClickUp is you can also have forms built in and they automatically dump into ClickUp. Is that something Asana does Asana have?
Speaker 1:forms built in. Yes, asana does have forms.
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay, that's another really powerful way to have everything and all in one place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it absolutely is. There's so many things that these platforms can do that I don't think people even realize, and it can be very overwhelming, like we've talked about. So you really do want to start small, like you don't want to start with all of these things and then get overwhelmed and be like there's no way I'm going back to this but there's so much that it can do.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly, and I think that's exactly. It is starting small, starting with one one thing and then building on from it, seeing how that works for you and then trying a new feature, adding that in, and before you know it, you'll have some really great systems and workflows in place. And just start from square one and find what your need is and build up from there one and find what your need is and build up from there.
Speaker 1:Yes, awesome. So what would you say if someone is coming to you for systems and they maybe they have a couple things, but not really much organized on the back end? They really need some simplifying and some streamlining. Where should they start?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think really the first place to start is sitting down and deciding where those main, what the priority is for how you want to systemize and how you want to streamline, because I think sometimes, when you hear systems, you think you need to systemize and how you want to streamline. Because I think sometimes when you hear systems, you think you need everything systemized right from the get-go and, while that's amazing, if you try to do everything at once, you can't, it's not maintainable, it's you can't build from that. So I think, starting from square one in systems, it's a great place to be, because sky's the limit. You have so much room to grow.
Speaker 2:But really figuring out what's the one area that will help me move the needle toward my goals the most, and figuring out what that system looks like, getting it running, figuring out what tools are best for you, not just jumping into any old tool, really taking a few extra minutes and I know that feels like a lot up front when you have no systems and you just want everything to work how you want it but taking those few extra minutes and finding something, researching a little and finding what really works for you and then building it and then tweaking it, it's not going to work perfect the first time.
Speaker 2:You need to keep improving it to work for your workflows and then, once that's maintained, go on to another system, and so I think starting off small and building up like that really helps. If you get support from someone else in operations, then maybe you can pull more in at once. But if you are doing some of this behind the scenes on your own, starting from square one especially, and focusing on one thing and getting it to really work for your business, is kind of the way I would recommend to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree. That's such good advice, that's so good. Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been such a good conversation and I think, like so many good things, that hopefully people can take away from this for all kinds of systems and especially like organizing the back end of your business. So, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It's so always so exciting to talk about these kinds of things with someone. And so this was a great conversation and I really appreciate you having me on and I hope that there's a lot of value found in this conversation. So I think there were some great tips and things passed along and I hope it's a great way for someone to start getting systems in place or learn some good tips to keep tweaking their systems. So thanks again for having me.
Speaker 1:For sure, and where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. So I'm on LinkedIn that's a great place as well as Instagram. Linkedin is like one of my top places that I'm on a lot, though, so definitely reach out to me on LinkedIn or Instagram or my website as well. You can reach out through there. I'm always happy to chat, lend some tips or hop on a call and things. But, yeah, definitely reach out there and yes.
Speaker 1:Awesome, great. So I will drop all of Katie's links below as well, if you would like to chat with her and thank you so much for listening today. It would be great if you would give it a five-star rating If you love the episode. If you have any questions, you can let either one of us know any feedback, any, anything like that. Otherwise, I will catch you in the next one.