Best Project Management Software for 2024? Motion vs Asana vs ClickUp vs Monday vs Notion 🤔

Summary

This video reviews various project management tools, focusing on the pros and cons of popular platforms like Notion, ClickUp, Monday.com, Asana, and Motion. The presenter critiques Notion for its lack of structure and ClickUp for being overly complex and buggy. Monday.com is also seen as too broad, while Asana is recommended for larger teams due to its stability and reliability. Motion, praised for its AI capabilities and integration with calendars, is favored for small to mid-sized teams or solo entrepreneurs, offering an efficient, all-in-one time and task management solution.

Takeaways

• 🔧 Notion, although recently marketed as a project management tool, is not recommended due to its overwhelming flexibility and lack of structure, making it hard to manage projects efficiently.
• ❗ Setting up a project management tool can take up to 50 hours, so it's important to prepare for a significant time investment in both configuration and team training.
• 📉 Adoption rates for project management tools can be poor, with 35% of small teams (10 or fewer employees) and 28% of larger teams abandoning them within a year.
• 🛠️ ClickUp, while offering an all-in-one solution, is often criticized for being overly complex, buggy, and overwhelming, leading to user frustration.
• 🚫 monday.com is visually appealing but ultimately cumbersome, with too many unnecessary fields, notifications, and a lack of scalability for long-term use.
• ✅ Asana, specifically designed as a project management tool, is stable, reliable, and well-suited for larger teams (200+ employees), with a powerful API and enterprise-level integrations.
• 📅 Motion, a newer tool, excels in time management by integrating tasks and calendar events, using AI to automatically reschedule tasks and improve daily workflow.
• 🤖 Motion's AI capabilities help prioritize tasks efficiently, especially useful for small to mid-sized teams (1-100 people) or solopreneurs.
• 💼 Asana is recommended for large teams, while Motion is suggested for smaller teams or individuals looking for simplicity and AI-driven task management.
• ❌ Notion, ClickUp, and monday.com are not recommended for project management due to their complexity, lack of focus, or scalability issues.

Q & A

What is the main focus of this video?

The main focus of the video is to compare various project management tools, including Notion, ClickUp, Monday.com, Asana, and Motion, and provide recommendations on which tool might be best suited for different team sizes and use cases.

Why does the presenter not recommend using Notion for project management?

The presenter does not recommend Notion for project management because it offers overwhelming flexibility with little guidance, leading to chaos when trying to manage projects. Instead of managing projects, users often end up building a project management system themselves.

What are the key concerns mentioned regarding the use of ClickUp?

The key concerns about ClickUp are that it tries to do too much by offering a wide range of features, which can lead to confusion and frustration. Users often find it overwhelming, buggy, and not optimized for specific tasks, resulting in a poor user experience.

What issue did the presenter encounter when using Monday.com as a project management tool?

The presenter found that while Monday.com looked visually appealing with colorful buttons and customizable statuses, it became cumbersome to update all the fields daily. Additionally, it didn't scale well for larger teams, leading to confusion and an eventual abandonment of the tool after about a year.

Why does the presenter recommend Asana for teams with over 200 employees?

The presenter recommends Asana for teams with over 200 employees because it is a dedicated project management tool with a reliable and stable platform. Asana's large team of developers focuses solely on improving the project management experience, making it suitable for larger enterprises with complex project needs.

What prompted the team at Efficient App to switch from Asana to Motion?

The team at Efficient App switched from Asana to Motion because Motion combines task and time management in one platform. It integrates personal and work tasks onto a calendar and uses AI to automatically reschedule tasks, offering a more streamlined and efficient way to manage time and projects.

How does Motion use AI to manage tasks?

Motion uses AI to rearrange tasks automatically. If a task is not completed by its deadline, Motion reschedules it for the next available time slot, reducing the manual effort required to adjust deadlines.

What does the presenter say about the time commitment required to set up a project management tool?

The presenter emphasizes that setting up a project management tool is not a quick task and can take up to 50 hours or more. It requires detailed mapping of processes, projects, and training for the team to effectively use the tool.

Why is adoption of project management tools often poor in small teams?

Adoption of project management tools is often poor in small teams because team members may find the tools cumbersome to update daily, leading to poor engagement. A study cited in the video showed that 35% of teams with 10 or fewer employees stopped using their project management tool after one year.

What type of team is Motion best suited for, according to the presenter?

According to the presenter, Motion is best suited for small to mid-sized teams, particularly teams with 1 to 100 people. It is also recommended for solopreneurs, as it offers a simple setup and helps manage both personal and work tasks efficiently.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Choosing the Best Project Management Tool

The speaker introduces the topic of selecting a project management software. They mention that the video will cover popular tools like ClickUp, Monday, Asana, and their favorite, Motion, while briefly discussing why they don't recommend Notion. The goal of the video is to help teams decide which tool works best, considering factors like team size, the complexity of the setup, adoption challenges, and daily use commitment.

05:02

🚧 The Challenge of Project Management Tool Setup

Setting up a project management tool requires significant time and effort, with some solutions taking over 50 hours to fully implement. Mapping out processes, projects, and team training is essential. Adoption can be poor, especially for smaller teams, with many abandoning these tools within a year. Successful implementation also depends on daily commitment from the entire team to update tasks and progress, making team buy-in crucial.

10:03

❌ Why Notion Falls Short as a Project Management Tool

The speaker explains that while Notion has begun marketing itself as a project management tool, its overwhelming flexibility and lack of structure make it difficult to use for managing projects effectively. Notion lacks the opinionation that dedicated PM tools like Asana and Monday offer, which makes users spend more time building a system than managing projects. Notion may appeal to solopreneurs for basic task management, but it's not recommended for larger teams.

⚠️ ClickUp: Overwhelming and Buggy

ClickUp promises to replace multiple tools with its comprehensive features, but the speaker warns that it tries to do too much. This leads to an overwhelming user experience and a buggy platform that falls short in execution. User feedback highlights its complexity, poor design, and inefficiency. The speaker advises against using ClickUp due to its overwhelming feature set and the risk of micromanagement.

🎨 The Appeal and Pitfalls of Monday.com

Monday.com is described as visually appealing but overly complicated for daily use. While the customizable features initially seem useful, they become cumbersome over time. Teams often face issues with unnecessary fields and overwhelming notifications, making the tool hard to scale. After using Monday.com for about a year, the speaker's team abandoned it, finding it too complex and buggy for their needs.

✅ Asana: Reliable and Effective for Large Teams

Asana stands out as a dedicated project management tool with a solid reputation. It is highly reliable, less buggy, and has powerful integrations and APIs. While it is best suited for larger teams (200+ employees), Asana requires proper setup and team training for successful adoption. The speaker endorses Asana for its stability and long-standing experience in project management.

🚀 Motion: The Ultimate Time Management Tool

The speaker shares their experience transitioning from Asana to Motion. Motion integrates tasks, meetings, and personal appointments into one platform, allowing teams to manage their time efficiently. Its AI-powered scheduling system automatically reschedules tasks when deadlines are missed. Motion is ideal for small to mid-sized teams or solopreneurs looking for a streamlined tool that balances work and personal time.

💡 Final Recommendations and Next Steps

For teams with up to 100 members, Motion is recommended as the easiest and most efficient tool. Larger teams should consider Asana, while ClickUp, Monday.com, and Notion are discouraged. The speaker closes by encouraging viewers to leave comments for any additional questions and to subscribe for more content in an upcoming mini-series.

Keywords

💡Project management tool

A project management tool is software designed to help teams organize, manage, and track tasks and projects. In the video, the presenter discusses various project management tools like Notion, ClickUp, Monday, Asana, and Motion, emphasizing their role in helping teams handle workflow, task distribution, and time management. Each tool has different strengths, weaknesses, and target user sizes.

💡Notion

Notion is a knowledge management and collaboration tool that has recently been marketed as a project management solution. The video criticizes Notion for its overwhelming flexibility and lack of structure, making it difficult for teams to manage projects efficiently. The presenter suggests that it might work for solopreneurs but not for larger teams due to its chaotic setup.

💡ClickUp

ClickUp is an all-in-one project management tool that offers features like task management, whiteboards, dashboards, and document creation. While it aims to replace multiple tools with a single solution, the video highlights its complexity and buggy nature. The presenter mentions that ClickUp tries to do too much, leading to an overwhelming user experience and poor adoption for some teams.

💡Monday.com

Monday.com is a popular project management tool that initially attracted users with its visually appealing design and customizable statuses. However, the video points out that its complexity increases over time, making it difficult for teams to maintain daily updates. The presenter shares personal experience using Monday, which ultimately led to abandoning the tool due to its inefficiency for larger teams.

💡Asana

Asana is a dedicated project management tool designed specifically for task and project tracking. The video describes Asana as reliable and stable, with fewer bugs compared to other tools. It's recommended for larger teams (200+ employees) due to its robust API and enterprise-level functionality. Asana is praised for its long-term focus on improving project management without branching into other unrelated areas.

💡Motion

Motion is described as the ultimate time management platform that integrates task management and scheduling into one system. The video highlights Motion's AI-driven task rescheduling feature, which adapts to incomplete tasks by automatically moving them to the next available time slot. Motion is recommended for small to mid-sized teams and solopreneurs for its simplicity and focus on time efficiency.

💡Time management

Time management refers to the process of organizing and planning how to divide time between activities. In the video, the presenter emphasizes Motion's ability to help users manage both personal and work-related tasks by integrating them into a single calendar. Tools like Motion are praised for helping individuals and teams optimize their time by scheduling tasks in relation to other commitments.

💡AI (Artificial Intelligence)

AI in the context of the video refers to how project management tools like Motion use machine learning algorithms to assist users in managing their schedules. Motion's AI automatically reschedules tasks that weren’t completed on time, helping users focus on what to do next without manually reorganizing deadlines. This feature makes time management more efficient and less burdensome.

💡Adoption

Adoption in project management refers to how successfully a team integrates and consistently uses a new tool. The video discusses the challenges of adoption, with many teams abandoning project management tools after a year due to poor engagement or complexity. This is especially relevant for tools like ClickUp and Monday, where users report frustration with overwhelming features and complex setups.

💡Setup time

Setup time refers to the time it takes to fully implement and configure a project management tool for a team. In the video, the presenter warns viewers that setting up tools like Asana or ClickUp can take over 50 hours, as it involves mapping out processes, organizing tasks, and training the team. This is presented as a crucial factor to consider when choosing a project management tool.

Highlights

Notion is marketed as a project management tool, but it's criticized for being too flexible, leading to chaos instead of efficient project management.

ClickUp tries to do everything, from tasks to whiteboards to docs, but ends up being overwhelming and buggy, missing key features due to trying to cover too much.

Monday.com, while visually appealing, struggles with complexity and scalability for larger teams. It also tries to expand into other areas like CRM, which isn't effective.

A study by Reich found that 35% of teams with 10 or fewer employees stopped using their project management tool after one year, with 28% of larger teams doing the same.

Setting up a project management tool is time-consuming, often requiring 50+ hours for configuration, mapping processes, and training team members.

Adopting a project management tool requires daily commitment from the entire team, as it demands consistent updates to project statuses and tasks.

The main benefit of Asana is its singular focus on project management, making it reliable, stable, and powerful, especially for larger teams with over 200 employees.

Motion, the team’s current favorite, is a time management platform that combines task scheduling, calendar management, and AI to auto-reschedule missed tasks.

Motion integrates well with Slack, allowing team members to convert messages into tasks automatically, adding them to the calendar without manual input.

Motion is ideal for small to mid-sized teams (1 to 100 people) and solopreneurs, thanks to its simplicity and AI features for managing tasks and time effectively.

While tools like Monday and ClickUp try to be all-in-one solutions, they often overwhelm users with unnecessary features and lead to frustration.

The flexibility of Notion can become a drawback, as users end up spending more time building a project management system rather than managing their projects.

ClickUp received mixed reviews on Reddit, with users highlighting its inefficiency, complexity, and confusion due to poor information architecture and excessive features.

Asana is recommended for large teams that are already familiar with enterprise tools like HubSpot or Salesforce, as it requires proper setup and training.

Tools like Motion focus on answering the question 'what do I need to do next?' by placing tasks directly into the user’s calendar, integrating work and personal tasks in one place.

Transcripts

so your team has finally decided that

it's time to set up a project management

software and you're wondering which

one's best for you well in this video

I'm going to cover notion as a project

manager which we don't recommend and

then also more popular ones like click

up Monday Asana and then our favorite

motion choosing the right project

management tool for your team can be a

very daunting task there's a lot of

options out there and in this video I

hope to clarify for you which one may be

best for your team so here at efficient

app we've personally used monday.com

Asana and also motion and we've also

deeply vetted click up and notion which

just recently started marketing

themselves as a project management tool

so keep watching to find out which one

was our favorite as you're watching this

video I just want you to keep in mind

your team size because a lot of these

project management tools were created

for larger teams with hundreds of

employees so a few caveats that I want

to cover before we really deep dive into

the different tools available number one

setup is no joke prepare to spend up to

50 hours or even more to set up some of

these solutions for your team deeply

mapping out your processes and your

projects and also training your team on

how to use them so if you're looking for

a solution that you think is going to be

set up overnight just want you to take a

moment and consider that this is

typically a larger project at hand

number two adoption can be poor so a

study by Reich found out that 35 percent

of teams that had 10 or less employees

stopped using the project management

tool after one year for teams greater

than 10 about 28 percent of teams give

up on using a project management after

the first year the third thing to

remember is that using a project

management tool is a Daily Commitment

not only for yourself but also for your

team team members need to update the

project management tool every single day

they need to update what's been

completed or update the status of things

so you really need buy-in from the

entire team if this is something that

you're planning on rolling out now that

we've covered that now let's talk about

the actual project management tools on

the market and which ones we recommend

let's start with notion as a project

manager so notion recently started

marketing themselves as a project

manager they're saying on their website

that they're a powerful project

management tool without the chaos which

is kind of ironic and funny because

chaos is probably the exact word that

I'd use to describe trying to manage any

kind of projects in notion the problem

with notion is that there's such little

guard rails when it comes to the tool

there's overwhelming flexibility and

initially that can seem a little bit

exciting because you're thinking you're

going to set up this project manager

ideally exactly how you want it for for

your business but the problem with

little guard rails is that there's no

opinionation of how things should work

and you end up starting to build a

project manager tool instead of really

just managing your projects you have to

remember that tools like Monday and

Asana and click up their whole business

is dedicated towards building a solution

as a project manager notion is a

knowledge base and they're just giving

you ideas of different ways that you can

use it so maybe if you're a solopreneur

or you're working on your own and you

really just want a really basic way to

manage your tasks you can toy with the

idea but even that I wouldn't recommend

the truth is we didn't even want to

mention notion as a part of this review

but because they're starting to Market

themselves this way we thought it might

be worth mentioning just to hopefully

help lessen the confusion out there

let's move on to another popular one

click up click up markets itself as one

app to replace them all they say that

they can manage your tasks they can

offer you white boards dashboards chat

goals and even docs again while this

might be appealing because you're

thinking you're going to need less tools

the problem with an all-in-one tool is

that they try to do just way too much

the main complaint we hear about click

up and the reason why we haven't even

tried to implement it in our business is

that it's overwhelming to use there's

too many features and it's super buggy

because instead of focusing on doing one

thing well it kind of tries to do

everything and then it misses out on the

final 10 to 15 percent of really making

features as powerful as they could be

here's some thoughts we found on Reddit

so easy release 8115 says my

organization use click up and I hated it

I spent more time creating cards and

tracking time and reorganizing my space

than I did actually working part of the

problem is how my boss used click up for

micromanaging it's dangerous when it's

used by a bad boss I guess that can be

true for any project manager someone

else said I really dislike click up am I

missing something so an organization I

work with is moving to click up most of

the reviews I've seen are super positive

and the rest of my team seems to really

like it so far but I really really

dislike it I find it buggy confusing

complex poorly designed from an

information architecture standpoint and

more when assessing potential PM tools

last year click up was at the bottom of

my list along with Asana kinda disagree

with you and they are but let's keep

going I also think it's odd that people

keep talking about efficiency because

its efficiency is just so vastly

inferior anyway what am I missing I'm

really curious because the reviews are

so incredibly positive but I find it

nearly impossible to use without getting

frustrated every few seconds it would be

wonderful if I can choke down the

Kool-Aid since I'm stuck using click up

whether I like it or not another PM tool

that we believe is trying to do way too

much is monday.com and I have personal

experience with Monday because I

actually tried to use it for about a

year with one of my previous customers

Monday has expanded into trying to do

everything as well and recently we even

saw themselves Market themselves as a

CRM which really just made me want to

pull my hair out if you're looking for a

c CRM just use a proper CRM don't try to

use a project manager as a CRM I'll be

honest the appeal with monday.com for

myself and my team at the time was just

how pretty it looked they had all these

colorful buttons and we thought how cool

would it be to manage everything in here

so when you first set it up you're

encouraged to have many different

statuses you can prioritize things based

on a five-star system and that's cool

and all but then when you actually start

using it every single day you're finding

how much work it is to update all these

fields that you had set up initially as

we went on and used it even more we

found that really we didn't need all

these fields and we just kept cutting

back and there was also a lot of trouble

with really making it work for a greater

team there was just so many

notifications that were firing off

everywhere and everybody just kept

feeling like confused in terms of when

they were actually needed in the tool

and when they weren't now granted that

problem can happen with other tools and

it requires like proper notification

setup which we then did and eventually

we actually just assigned the tool to be

managed by 1 pm and he kind of had you

know his run with it we were a team of

about 15 people at the time and we

totally fit into that Reich study

because after I'd say six to eight

months it really started phasing out of

the business and after a year we stopped

using it entirely because it just wasn't

scalable for what we were trying to do

so overall yes I'll say monday.com looks

pretty I really like their marketing but

in terms of being an effective tool I

don't think it's great I think it's also

kind of buggy and if you're looking for

a more reliable project manager I think

you're going to really benefit from

checking out something like Asana that's

been around a lot longer so now that

you've heard me talk about the tools

that we don't recommend let's talk about

the tools that we actually like what we

like about Asana is that it's just a PM

tool through and through they've always

been a PM tool and that's all that

they're still trying to be till this day

last we checked they have about 1700

employees that are working on one thing

and that's giving you a better project

management experience and solution this

means that their tool is reliable it's

stable it's not as buggy as the other

tools and it has a powerful API with

lots of cool types of Integrations and

features that come along with it so we

actually used Asana here at efficient

app for seven years it was RPM tool and

that's before we switched to motion

which I'll talk about in a second the

thing with Asana is we actually do still

recommend it if you have say over 200

employees if you have a large team if

you are familiar with the Enterprise

space and you're familiar with tools

like HubSpot or Salesforce that require

more of a consultant to set it up that

is your Asana version of a PM tool it is

great when set up properly and if you

have proper team training and you can

get that adoption we really think it is

the best tool on the market for larger

teams so last but not least what's the

tool that we currently use about a year

ago we switched off of Asana and we

started using motion and the reason for

that is because motion is the ultimate

time platform management tool what I

mean by that is prior to motion we had

our tasks in Asana that were work

related and then we had our personal

tasks that we stored in something called

tick tick which is another tool and then

we had a calendly equivalent called

chili Piper that we used to schedule

calls and we were using all of these

different tools to try to really manage

where we needed to be and what we needed

to do so with motion initially they were

a calendar tool that allowed people to

schedule time on your calendar and they

did that in a really clever way by

allowing you to kind of Chunk your

meanings together and free up more time

so you can actually get Focus work done

then they expanded into being a task

management and now a full project

management tool what's really cool about

it is that we can put all of our our

tasks for our different customers and

projects within motion and then it puts

those specific tasks on our calendar so

as you can imagine we have meetings and

places that we need to be personal

appointments as well on our calendar and

around that we have our tasks that we

need to do that are work related and

also personal related at the end of the

day we are just one person we all have

the same amount of hours in a day so it

kind of seems ridiculous in hindsight

now to use all these different tools to

manage your time when in reality the

only question you should be asking is

what do I need to do next and that's

what motion helps answer for us really

easily motion also uses AI to rearrange

our tasks for us so in Asana we would

spend a sick amount of time rearranging

our deadlines and pushing things

backwards when we didn't actually

complete a task in a specific deadline

which is super common across you know

every job in every industry but with

motion if you have something that you

need to complete for one day and you

don't get it done then motion would

automatically reschedule that task for

you for the next day or your next

available time slot again this makes it

so much easier because we open up motion

and that question of what do I need to

do next is mainly answered for us we

also have a really cool integration with

motion and our slack where say Alex who

is my business partner sends me a

message I can just hit save on that

message and it automatically puts it as

a task on my calendar within motion we

have a whole video showing that

integration off so check it out in the

description so if you're a small to

mid-sized team so say one to a hundred

people you can probably get away with

using motion and that setup that I

mentioned at the beginning that's 50

plus hours the smaller your team the

quicker it's going to be with a tool

like motion because like I said you're

really just managing your time and then

you have tasks and then you can break

them up into bigger projects if you need

to if you are a solopreneur i would also

recommend motion instead of notion that

I spoke about in the beginning and

that's because it's just really set up

for you it's opinionated and all you

have to do is go through the prompts and

before you know it you really have all

your tasks on your calendar in one place

you don't have to figure out how to

configure it so if you're looking for

Simplicity a Sprinkle of AI motion is

the way to go if you are a larger team

200 people plus Asana is the way to go

and if you're considering click up

monday.com or notion we wouldn't

recommend it if there's other questions

that you have that we haven't covered in

this video make sure to leave them down

in the comments below we're available to

answer anything that can help your

decision making process a little bit

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