How to Manage Resource Utilization in ClickUp

ClickUp gives project teams a central workspace to plan work, assign people, and track effort so you can improve resource utilization across every project.

This how-to guide walks you step by step through setting up your workspace, tracking time, and building reports that show exactly how your team is being used.

Step 1: Plan Your Projects in ClickUp

Effective resource utilization starts with a clear plan. Before you can analyze capacity or workload, you need a well-structured project space in ClickUp.

Create a Space and Folders in ClickUp

1. Sign in to your workspace.

2. Create a new Space for your team or client portfolio.

3. Inside the Space, add Folders to group related projects, such as by client, department, or product line.

Organizing work this way lets you quickly filter by team, project, or client when you evaluate resource utilization.

Set Up Lists and Tasks

1. Within each Folder, create Lists to represent individual projects or phases (for example, “Website Redesign” or “Q1 Campaigns”).

2. Add tasks for each deliverable or work package.

3. Break complex work into subtasks so you can assign people more precisely and estimate effort more accurately.

Short, clearly defined tasks give you better visibility into what each team member is working on, which improves the reliability of resource reports.

Step 2: Configure Resource Fields in ClickUp

To understand who is doing what, you need consistent task data. This means capturing assignees, dates, estimates, and effort fields inside ClickUp.

Add Key Custom Fields

On your project Lists, add custom fields that support resource analysis, such as:

• Effort estimate (hours or story points)

• Role (designer, developer, writer, etc.)

• Priority (so you can realign people to critical work)

These fields help you compare planned capacity to actual work done and surface overloaded roles or teams.

Use Assignees and Dates Consistently

• Set at least one responsible assignee on every task.

• Apply start and due dates to all tasks that require tracked resources.

• For shared work, add multiple assignees but keep ownership clear via comments or a primary assignee convention.

When ClickUp has accurate people and time data on each task, your utilization reports become far more trustworthy.

Step 3: Use ClickUp Time Tracking for Utilization

Time tracking is a core input for calculating utilization. By capturing how long work actually takes, you can refine estimates and balance future workloads.

Enable Time Tracking in ClickUp

1. Open a task in your project List.

2. Locate the Time Tracking area.

3. Start a timer while you work, or log time manually when the task is done.

Encourage your team to log time consistently so you get a complete view of billable and non-billable hours.

Tag Billable vs. Non-Billable Work

To see how much of your team’s capacity goes to revenue-generating work:

• Use custom fields or tags to label time entries as billable or non-billable.

• Apply these labels on tasks that represent client or internal work.

When you analyze your reports, you can quickly see whether your people are spending their time on the right mix of activities.

Step 4: Visualize Workload in ClickUp Views

ClickUp offers multiple views that help you see how work is distributed across your team and spot overcapacity issues before they become problems.

Use the Workload View in ClickUp

The Workload view lets you review assignments and task effort per user or role.

1. Open your Space, Folder, or List.

2. Add a Workload view.

3. Group by assignee to see each person’s commitments over time.

4. Configure capacity (for example, 6–8 hours per day) so you can compare assigned effort against available time.

If any person exceeds their capacity for several days, you can reschedule tasks or reassign work to balance the load.

Use the Gantt View for Scheduling

The Gantt view helps you understand dependencies and timing, which directly affects how resources are scheduled.

1. Add a Gantt view to a project List or Folder.

2. Review task timelines and links between dependent tasks.

3. Drag and drop bars to adjust schedules when resources become constrained.

With Gantt schedules aligned to your Workload view, you can confidently adjust dates and resources to keep projects on track.

Step 5: Create Resource Utilization Dashboards in ClickUp

Dashboards consolidate data into one place, giving leaders a real-time view of how resources are being used across projects.

Build a Utilization Dashboard

1. From your workspace, create a new Dashboard.

2. Add widgets based on tasks, time tracking, and people.

3. Filter by Space, Folder, or List to focus on a single team or account.

Useful widgets for resource utilization include:

• Time tracked by assignee to see who is near or over capacity

• Time tracked by project to highlight accounts consuming more effort than budgeted

• Task status by assignee to reveal bottlenecks

Monitor Key Utilization Metrics

Inside your Dashboard, track metrics such as:

• Percentage of time spent on billable vs. non-billable work

• Average hours per person per week

• Tasks overdue per team member

Use these insights to reassign work, hire extra support, or adjust project scopes before issues escalate.

Step 6: Improve Estimates Using ClickUp Data

Over time, actual work logs inside ClickUp become a rich data source to improve planning and resource utilization.

Compare Estimates vs. Actuals

1. Open a project List and add columns showing estimate and time tracked.

2. Sort or filter tasks where actual time is much higher than the estimate.

3. Identify patterns by task type, role, or client.

Use this information to refine your estimates for future projects so you allocate realistic capacity for each resource.

Adjust Capacity and Work Allocation

As you learn more about how long work takes, update your assumptions:

• Increase capacity on roles that consistently finish tasks early.

• Decrease capacity or improve processes where tasks regularly run over.

• Shift specific task types to people who complete them more efficiently.

These ongoing adjustments ensure your utilization rates stay healthy without burning out your team.

Step 7: Share Resource Reports from ClickUp

Stakeholders and clients often want visibility into how resources are allocated and used. You can share data from ClickUp in several ways.

Export and Share Dashboards

Use your utilization Dashboard as a single source of truth:

• Present key widgets in review meetings.

• Grant view-only access to managers who need regular insight into capacity.

• Use time period filters to prepare month-end or quarterly summaries.

Use ClickUp Reports in Strategy Sessions

Bring utilization data into planning sessions to support decisions like:

• Which projects to prioritize or pause

• Where to hire new staff or contractors

• How to rebalance workloads across teams

Objective data from ClickUp creates more transparent conversations about workloads and investment decisions.

Learn More About Resource Utilization

To deepen your understanding of resource utilization concepts and see examples of how teams apply them, review the original guide on the ClickUp resource utilization blog page.

If you need help designing a scalable workspace or optimizing your configuration for reporting and utilization, consider working with a consulting partner such as Consultevo.

By planning projects carefully, tracking time accurately, and using views and Dashboards effectively, you can use ClickUp to keep resources balanced, protect profitability, and deliver projects on time.

Need Help With ClickUp?

If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your ClickUp workspace, work with ConsultEvo — trusted ClickUp Solution Partners.

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