Why ClickUp belongs in my research Workflows

I wear a few hats: scientist, mentor, educator, and community builder. That means parallel timelines—IRB and pilot studies, student milestones, manuscripts, travel, seminars—moving at once. ClickUp is the “project brain” where I see it all in one place, from multi-site environmental health and biomarker discovery projects to student capstones and journal club prep. That unified view is how I keep the work human and sustainable, not chaotic (and yes, it plays nicely with my time-blocking and survey stack).

My ClickUp stack at a glance

Spaces: Research • Teaching • Mentoring • Outreach/Media • Admin
Views I live in: Gantt (grants/manuscripts), Kanban (student tasks), List (meeting agendas), Calendar (class deliverables), Dashboard (KPIs).
Automations: “If status = Ready for PI review → assign to me + due in 3 days,” recurring “Weekly mentoring check-ins,” and “Move to ‘Submission’ when manuscript files are attached.”

Real examples from my workflow

1) Environmental & respiratory health research, end-to-end

For ongoing and in-review lines—e.g., machine-learning analyses connecting aeroallergens with respiratory outcomes, dust immunotoxicity post-Hurricane María, and predictive modeling proposals—each study has a ClickUp “roadmap” list: Aims → Design → IRB/Compliance → Data → Analysis → Manuscript → Dissemination. Every stage has sub-tasks for datasets, figures, and author communications, with dependencies to prevent bottlenecks.

What it replaces: scattered Google Docs, email threads, and whiteboard snapshots.

Tip: Use custom fields for IRB #, registry links, analysis language (R/Python), and target journal—so your Dashboard can filter “papers within 14 days of submission.”

2) Educational Biomarker Discovery Lab (EBDL): student-centered research

EBDL projects (biomarkers in environmental/respiratory health; student training pipelines) live in a single Space, with folders per cohort. Each mentee has a board with tasks like “Literature map,” “Protocol rehearsal,” “QC checklist,” and “Figure 1 draft,” plus a Mentor 1:1 recurring agenda list that auto-pulls overdue tasks. It’s transparent, equitable, and great for feedback culture.

Outcome: Fewer “what’s next?” emails, clearer authorship contributions, and better on-time posters/talks.

3) Manuscripts & conference season

For conference abstracts and talks, I run a Submission Pipeline board: statuses from Scoping → Drafting → Internal Review → Compliance → Submitted → Accepted → Slide-Ready. Custom fields track word/figure limits, submission portal, and speaker logistics (travel, hotel, honoraria). The same board handles manuscripts—great for keeping version control and figure to-dos sane during busy seasons.

Find below an example research workflow we implement in ClickUp:

Five ClickUp templates you can borrow (feel free to contact me)

Lab Project Roadmap
Lists: Aims • IRB • Field/Lab Work • Analysis • Writing • Submission.
Views: Gantt for deadlines; Docs for methods; Dashboard for RAG (red-amber-green) risk.
Mentoring 1:1
Recurring agenda, skill-building tasks, conference deadlines, and a “Wins” list to document growth for letters.
Manuscript Factory
Sections for figures, tables, journal guidelines, cover letter, and a pre-submission checklist (authorship, disclosures, data/code).
Conference & Talk Tracker
Abstracts, travel logistics, slide asset library, and a “Post-talk follow-ups” list to convert talks into manuscripts or collaborations.

Find below an example mentoring workflow we implement in ClickUp:

Example workflow with ClickUp for mentoring.

My ClickUp automations that save hours

Status → Assignee + Due Date: When a student moves a task to Ready for Review, ClickUp assigns me and sets a 3-day SLA.
Recurring Planning: Monday morning auto-creates “Weekly PI Review,” “Grant stand-up,” and “Mentor 1:1 agendas.”
Attachment Gate: When “Submission” status is selected without required files, ClickUp drops a checklist to prevent misses.

Metrics I actually track (Dashboard)

On-time rate by project stream (research, teaching, mentoring).
Manuscript cycle time (first draft → submission).
Student milestone velocity (proposal → poster → manuscript).
Content consistency (videos/posts per month, CTR).
These simple KPIs keep ambition aligned with reality.

Pitfalls & how to avoid them

Too many spaces: Start with 3–5. Let custom fields and tags do the heavy lifting.
Unclear review gates: Define “Done” per list (e.g., QC passed, Figures linked, IRB logged).
Template drift: Quarterly clean-ups to archive stale lists and refresh automations.

Click here to learn more and try ClickUp!

About the author

Dr. Félix E. Rivera-Mariani is an associate professor and consultant whose research, mentoring, and science communication span environmental immunology, respiratory health equity, and computational approaches. He leads student-integrated projects, publishes and presents widely, and builds equitable, scalable systems for doing science—without the burnout.

ClickUp for Scientists: Running Labs, Mentoring, and Grants Without Burning Out