How to Set Up Your Workspace (Recommendations Based on Use Case)
Note: This article assumes you've read "Creating a Task in Motion" [here] and "How to Make a Project: Workflow Projects and Regular Projects" [Link]. If you haven't, we recommend starting there for foundational concepts.
TL;DR:
Workspaces are the building blocks for organizational mastery in Motion. Storing all your projects, tasks, custom fields, and more; workspaces can be customized and optimized to fit your preferences. In this article, we will guide you through setting up your workspaces using configurations and best practices to create an efficient workspace that best matches your needs.
Key steps outlined in this article include workspace creation, settings customizations, and implementing use-case-specific structures. Let’s begin!
Understanding Workspaces
What is a Workspace?
A workspace in Motion is a dedicated environment for collaboration, organization, and task management. It serves as the highest level of organizational structure, containing all your projects, tasks, and team settings. Workspaces allow you to separate different areas of your business or personal projects, providing clarity and efficiency.
Benefits of Using Workspaces:
Organization at Scale: Manage multiple teams, projects, and departments seamlessly through designated workspaces.
Improved Coordination: Dedicated spaces for each project or team ensure streamlined focus and coordination.
Customization and Flexibility: Adapt workspaces to fit different needs, from individual projects to company-wide initiatives. Layers of customization allow you to truly make your workspace unique to your needs.
Individual Example: Sarah, a freelance graphic designer, uses separate workspaces for each of her clients. This prevents overlap between projects and ensures she can track deliverables, client requirements, and deadlines without confusion.
Team Example: A marketing agency can create separate workspaces for different departments for their writers, designers, and editors all while still utilizing an additional shared workspace for cross-company meetings and collaborations.
Creating a Workspace
There are two ways to create a workspace in Motion:
1. From the Calendar View
Navigate to the left side panel and scroll to the Workspaces section.
Click the '+' button next to Workspaces.
Fill in the pop-up form with the following:
Workspace name.
Optionally, copy settings from another workspace.
Add members if necessary.
Click Save.
2. From the Settings
Click the Settings (⚙) icon in the upper-left corner.
Scroll to the Workspaces section.
Click '+ Add Workspace'.
Configure the pop-up options and save.
Getting to Know Your Workspace Settings
Customizing your workspace settings allows you to personalize and streamline your workspace to best suit your project and team needs.
Within Motion’s workspace settings, you can edit:
Overviews: Edit the workspace name, add/remove workspace members, and delete the workspace if need be.
Statuses: Modify existing statuses or create new statuses as well as disable auto-scheduling for specific statuses to best suit your team's needs.
Project Templates: Create and edit both regular project templates and project workflow templates to standardize recurring projects (also available with AI assistance). Ability to duplicate project workflows across workspaces. For more on project templates click [here].
Task Templates: Set up and modify task templates to streamline frequently repeated tasks; saving you time and ensuring consistency.
Custom Fields: Add or modify custom fields, which act as tags to provide additional information and categorize tasks and projects.
Labels: Create, edit, or delete labels to improve the organization and filtering of your tasks within the workspace.
Accessing Your Workspace Settings
There are two ways to access your workspace settings in Motion:
1. From the Settings Menu
Open the Settings (⚙) icon in the upper-left corner of the Motion interface.
Scroll down to the ‘Workspaces’ section.
Click on the workspace you wish to configure.
2. From the Calendar View
Locate your workspace on the lower left-hand side of the Motion interface.
Hover your mouse over the specific workspace you’d like to edit.
Click the gear (⚙) icon that appears to access your workspace settings.
Motion Teams: Setting Workspace Permissions
For Motion teams, projects and tasks within a workspace are only visible to those who have been successfully added to that workspace by the team admin.
Steps for adding teammates to a workspace:
Click the settings icon in the upper left-hand corner of the Motion app.
Scroll down and select the specific workspace you would like to add your teammate.
In the 'overview' section of your workspace settings you will see a list of member already added to the workspace.
Select '+ Add Member' beneath the list of active workspace members.
This will populate a list of selectable team members.
Select the team member you wish to add to the workspace.
Your new team member will now have access to this workspaces tasks and projects.
Workspaces: Use Case-Specific Setup Guide
This section provides setup recommendations tailored to different use cases. Properly structuring your workspace strategically enhances productivity and ensures that projects, tasks, and workflows are organized for maximum efficiency.
Solo Entrepreneur Setup
Overview: This workspace structure focuses on managing individual client projects and personal business growth initiatives. Each workspace contains specific projects and tasks related to its category designation.
Recommended Structure:
Client Projects Workspace
Spaces for new/ongoing client projects – Dedicated areas to manage each client's work.
Client communication tracking – Detailed tasks for client follow-ups and interactions.
Deliverables timeline – Project deadlines and milestones are all tracked in one place.
Business Development Workspace
Marketing tasks – Projects related to self-promoting services, updating portfolios, and social media content creation.
Lead generation projects – Initiatives to attract new clients, track prospects, and manage outreach efforts.
Professional development tracking – Personal goals, courses, and resources for growing skills and expanding services.
Example: A freelance writer uses one workspace to manage active client projects and another for personal business development and professional growth. The client project(s) workspace holds all the new and ongoing client projects. Each new client project that comes in is strategically added to this workspace.
The personal development workspace may include ideas for portfolio updates, concepts for enhanced social media planning, and other self-improvement initiatives.
This setup keeps client work and personal growth initiatives distinct, enabling seamless tracking of client feedback and progress.
Small Team Setup
Overview: This setup separates project-based work from administrative operations, ensuring efficiency, clarity, and focus across different team functions. Each workspace separately holds all relevant projects and tasks tied to ongoing team initiatives.
Recommended Structure:
Project-oriented Workspace
Active project spaces – New and ongoing client projects assigned to team members.
Collaboration zones – Spaces for brainstorming and shared task management.
Administrative-specific Workspace
Team resources – Centralized knowledge base documents, tools, and guidelines.
Resource organization – Planning and allocating team resources (e.g. finance and hiring).
Process documentation– Storing company guidelines and standard operating procedures.
Example: A tech startup with five employees utilizes workspaces to streamline its efficiency. One workspace operates for team projects and covers ongoing client work the team is currently actioning. The other is for internal team documentation and resource tracking.
This setup differentiates operational tasks and project-based work from internal resources; promoting team collaboration while maintaining structured administrative processes.
Enterprise Setup
Overview: This workspace structure divides responsibilities by department(s) while providing a shared, collaborative space for company-wide initiatives. Each workspace includes unique department-specific projects, recurring tasks, and resources.
Recommended Structure:
Department-Specific Workspaces
Marketing – Campaigns, content planning, and outreach initiatives.
Engineering – Ongoing projects, bug-tracking, and new feature releases.
Operations – Process improvements, logistics, and workflows.
Finance – Budget planning, financial reporting, and audits.
HR – Recruitment, onboarding, and employee trainings.
Cross-Functional Team Workspace
Inter-department initiatives – Collaborative projects that span multiple departments.
Example: A large tech company creates separate workspaces for each department, allowing teams to focus on their team-specific projects; ensuring efficiency and successfully met client deadlines. The cross-team shared workspace allows for collaborating on shared company-wide initiatives.
This structure establishes a clear and streamlined separation between departments and facilitates large-scale collaboration without clutter, confusion, or overlap.
Conclusion
Setting up workspaces in Motion is essential for maintaining organizational clarity and optimizing productivity. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, a small team, or a large enterprise, structuring your workspaces correctly enhances collaboration, scalability, and efficiency.
By properly utilizing your workspaces and their settings; you can tailor your Motion experience to best suit your unique needs and operations.
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