Managing Multiple Projects Efficiently Using Atarim

How to run twenty client projects without twenty times the overhead — structure, shortcuts, and the parts worth automating.

Atarim team Updated 29 Jul 2026 · 10 min read

Managing Projects

The Atarim projects screen with many client projects and their task counts

Before you start

Relevant for

Agencies and in-house teams running more projects than one person can hold in their head — roughly ten upwards.

Required knowledge

Familiarity with projects, tasks, and the Projects screen. This article assumes the basics and focuses on scale.

Tools & resources needed

An Atarim workspace with several projects.
Permission to create folders and workflows.

Two projects need no system. Twenty need one, and the difference is not effort — it is whether the structure does the remembering for you.

This article covers the decisions that matter at volume: how to divide work, how to find anything in seconds, what to automate, and what to clear away.

Start with Structure: Workspaces or Folders?

Both group projects, and choosing wrongly is the most common cause of a dashboard that feels unmanageable. The distinction is about separation, not tidiness.

	Workspaces	Folders
Separation	Complete — projects, people, and settings are isolated.	Visual — everything stays in one dashboard.
Switching	You change workspace to see the other set.	Everything is visible at once.
Team access	Per workspace.	Assign people to a folder and they get every project in it.
Use for	Genuinely separate businesses, brands, or departments.	Clients and accounts inside one business.

Most agencies need one workspace and many folders

Reach for a second workspace only when two sets of work should never appear side by side — a separate brand, or a department with its own team and billing. Splitting clients across workspaces means constant switching for no benefit. Explore The Websites Screen Overview

Organise Folders by Client

The folder structure that survives is the one based on something that does not change.

Create one folder per client, not per status or phase. Statuses change weekly; the client a project belongs to almost never does.

Assign that client’s team to the folder rather than to each project. Everyone gets access to every project inside — and to any project added later.

File new projects into the folder as you create them.

Creating a folder in Atarim and assigning its team members — Name the folder and assign its team as you create it

A client folder grouping several projects on the Atarim Projects screen — One folder per client keeps their work together

Tip

Create the folder at the start of a client relationship, before there is much to put in it. Then two years of projects inherit the right access without anyone thinking about it. Learn More About Adding And Managing Folders

Agree Naming Conventions Early

At volume, a project’s name is how you find it. Default names taken from a site’s title page are the single biggest obstacle to scanning a long list.

Rename every project as you create it. A pattern like Client — main site and Client — staging sorts and scans far better than “Home | Acme Ltd”.

Agree a small tag vocabulary with your team. Five agreed tags used consistently are worth more than forty invented ad hoc.

Set your branding once at workspace level and let projects inherit it.

Applying tags to a task in Atarim — A small, agreed tag vocabulary is what makes filtering useful later

Conventions only work if they are agreed

One person renaming projects while others leave defaults produces a list that is half-organised, which is harder to work with than one that is consistently messy. Write the convention down. Discover How To Set Up And Customize Projects

Find Anything in Seconds

Once you pass a screenful of projects, navigating by scrolling stops working. Four tools replace it.

To find…	Use
A project or task you can name	Ctrl + K — searches sites and tasks together, with shortcuts into Inbox or Boards on each result.
Where your team is working right now	Sort by Latest Tasks First.
Work that has been ignored longest	Sort by Oldest Tasks First.
Your heaviest projects before planning a week	Sort by Most Tasks First.
Only WordPress sites, or only designs	The project type filters.
One client’s work	Open their folder.

Search, filters, and sorting controls along the top of the Atarim Projects screen — Search, filters, and sorting sit along the top of the Projects screen

Learn Ctrl + K and stop using the grid to navigate

It reaches any project or task in a couple of keystrokes, and it is the single biggest speed difference between someone managing five projects and someone managing fifty. Learn More About Searching, Filtering, And Sorting

Filters persist

A filter switched on last week is still on today, and it is by far the most common reason a project appears to be missing. Reach for Clear search filters before assuming something has been deleted.

Tip

Switch to list view once you pass a dozen projects. Thumbnails stop helping and start scrolling. Find Out Which View Suits You Best

Work Across Projects, Not Project by Project

The biggest inefficiency at scale is opening projects one at a time. Both task views can span several projects, so you can work by priority rather than by client.

Open Boards and select several projects in the project selector. Their tasks appear on one board, so you triage the whole week rather than one account at a time.

Switch the board to priority view after a busy day of feedback. Columns become Low through Critical, and dragging cards sets priority as you triage.

Use Assigned To Me to see your own work across every project at once.

Filter by Assigned To a person to check workload before distributing more.

The project selector in Atarim, used to show tasks from several projects at once — Selecting several projects puts all their tasks on one board

An Atarim Kanban board showing tasks from several projects in status columns — Boards, for seeing where everything stands

An Atarim board switched to priority view, with columns from Low to Critical — Priority view — dragging a card sets its priority as you triage

Run one multi-project board for the week

Rather than a board per client. Work does not arrive politely divided by account, and a single view makes it obvious which client is actually consuming your team. Explore Kanban Boards

Use Bulk Actions After Every Review Round

Forty tasks handled individually is a morning. Handled as a batch it is a few minutes.

Filter to one client, one tag, or one status.

Use Select all visible tasks. The selection respects your filters, which is what makes it safe.

Apply status, priority, tags, notifications, pinning, internal, or delete to the whole batch.

The bulk action toolbar in Atarim, shown after selecting several tasks — The bulk toolbar appears once tasks are selected

Filter first, always

Select all visible tasks takes everything on screen, so narrowing is the difference between a helpful bulk change and a regrettable one. Learn More About Managing Tasks

Automate the Parts That Repeat

Anything you do the same way on every project is a workflow waiting to be built. At ten projects that saves minutes; at fifty it changes how the team works.

Repetitive job	Automate it with
Routing new tasks to whoever owns that account	Task added trigger with a Change task assignee step — no credit cost.
Telling your team when a client comments	Task comment added with a Slack notification.
Chasing work that has gone quiet	A status change, a Delay, then a comment.
Monthly proactive checks on retainer clients	A Schedule trigger with an AI design review and a PDF report.
Knowing when an automation breaks	A Workflow Failed trigger that notifies you.

A workflow in Atarim with a trigger and an action step — Integrations let a workflow push tasks into the tools your team already uses

Build the assignment workflow first

Nothing arriving unowned is the single biggest reduction in triage overhead across a lot of projects, and the step costs nothing to run. A workflow is attached to specific projects, so build one and attach it to every client project rather than rebuilding it per account. Discover Workflow Automation

Keep the List to Live Work Only

A Projects screen showing three years of finished builds is unusable regardless of how well it is organised. Archiving is the maintenance habit that keeps structure working.

Archive projects at sign-off rather than in an annual clear-out. Tasks, comments, and client conversations are all kept, and the project slot is released.

For a backlog, sort by Oldest Projects First and select a run of finished work.

Archive the batch in one action. The confirmation names how many projects are affected.

Archiving a project from the Atarim Projects screen — Archiving at sign-off releases the project slot and keeps the history

Check for open tasks first

Archiving hides a project’s tasks from Inbox and Boards too. Anything still outstanding becomes invisible until the project is restored. Archive rather than delete, always — both free a project slot, but only archiving can be undone. Discover How Archiving Keeps Your Work Safe

Use Reporting to Find the Bottleneck

At volume, the useful question stops being “what is happening on this project” and becomes “where is our time actually going”. That is a reporting question.

Open Analytics and read the Overview tiles. Turnaround, feedback cycles, and unresolved comments show where work is stalling rather than moving.

Use the Projects tab to compare projects side by side — task counts, progress, and stage in one table, which is faster than opening each one.

Use the Team tab to see workload distribution.

The Atarim Analytics overview showing turnaround and feedback cycle tiles — The Analytics overview, where stalling work shows up

Tip

Look for the project with a lot of open tasks and little recent activity. That combination is usually a stalled account rather than a busy one, and it will not announce itself. Explore Analytics & Metrics

Consolidate Duplicated Work

Running many projects tends to produce staging and live pairs, or duplicates created by accident. Rather than working them separately, tasks can be moved or copied between them.

Decide whether you are copying or moving. Copy leaves the source intact; move empties it.

Open the merge tool and choose the source and destination projects.

Check the destination carefully before confirming. There is no confirmation step and no undo.

The merge tool in Atarim, with source and destination project selectors — The merge tool — check both selections before confirming

Merging cannot be undone

And moving tasks empties the source project. Confirm both selections before you act. Learn More About Merging Projects

Benefits of Working This Way

Benefit	In practice
Onboarding is one action	A new starter joins a folder and gets every project in it, including future ones.
Nothing arrives unowned	An assignment workflow means no task waits for someone to notice it.
You work by priority, not by client	A multi-project board shows what matters most across the whole book of work.
Volume stops being a problem	Bulk actions turn a forty-task review round into a few minutes.
The list stays live	Archiving at sign-off keeps the screen to work in progress.
Bottlenecks surface on their own	Reporting shows the stalled account before the client does.

Example Use Cases

Situation	How to set it up
An agency with fifteen retainer clients	One folder per client, team assigned per folder, a monthly AI review workflow attached to each, archived at contract end.
A team where everyone works on everything	One multi-project board, sorted by priority, with Assigned To Me for individual work.
Two brands under one company	Separate workspaces, so the two never appear in the same list.
Staging and live sites for each client	Both in the client’s folder, named consistently, using merge to move tasks between them.
A Projects screen that has become unusable	Sort oldest first, archive finished work in bulk, then create folders for what remains.
A client who always goes to one person	A workflow assigning every new task on their projects to that person automatically.

Known Limitations

There is no cross-workspace view. Anything you need to see together must live in one workspace.

A project sits in one folder at a time.

Some organisation tools are plan-dependent — sorting, filtering, and workflows among them.

Workflows attach to specific projects, so a new project needs adding to the ones that should cover it.

Archived projects are hidden from search and filters until restored.

FAQs

Should I use workspaces or folders for my clients?

Folders, in almost every case. Workspaces are for work that should never appear side by side — a separate brand or department. Splitting clients across workspaces means constant switching.

Can I see tasks from several projects at once?

Yes. Choose multiple projects in the Boards or Inbox selector.

What is the quickest way to give someone access to a client’s projects?

Assign them to that client’s folder. They get every project in it, including ones added later.

How do I stop my Projects screen becoming unmanageable?

Archive at sign-off rather than in an annual clear-out, and organise the rest into folders by client.

What should I automate first?

Task assignment. It costs no credits to run and means nothing arrives without an owner.

How do I find a project quickly?

Press Ctrl + K and type its name. It searches sites and tasks together.

Why does a project seem to be missing?

Usually a filter left on from an earlier session, or the wrong workspace. Check both before assuming it was deleted.

Common issues

A project has disappeared — check the workspace, clear your filters, then look in Archived Projects, in that order.
You are switching workspaces constantly — the work probably belongs in one workspace with folders. Workspaces are for genuine separation.
New projects are not covered by your workflow — workflows attach per project. Add the new one to the workflow on the Manage tab.
Someone cannot see a project you expected them to — check whether they are assigned to its folder rather than the project.
A bulk change affected more than intended — Select all visible tasks follows your filters. Narrow them first.
Your project list is full — archive finished work rather than upgrading. It frees the same slots.
Tasks have vanished from your Inbox — their project may have been archived. Restoring it brings them back.

Conclusion

Scaling in Atarim is four habits: one folder per client with the team assigned to it, consistent names, one board across everything, and archiving at sign-off. Automate assignment, learn Ctrl + K, and the difference between ten projects and fifty stops being a difference in effort.

If your list has already grown past the point of being useful, organising it is the place to start. Explore Adding And Managing Folders

Tips & best practices

One workspace, many folders. Reach for a second workspace only for genuinely separate businesses.
Organise folders by client, not by status. Statuses change; clients do not.
Assign people to folders rather than projects, so new work is covered automatically.
Learn Ctrl + K. It is the biggest single speed gain at volume.
Build the assignment workflow first — it costs nothing and removes most triage.
Archive at sign-off, not once a year, and always archive rather than delete.

Was this article helpful?

Deleting Projects: How to Manage Dormant or Completed Projects That makes the interesting question not “how do I delete a project” but “should I”. Most of the time the answer is no. Archive Managing Projects · 9 min read Assigning Projects and Tasks to Team Members in Atarim Projects handle the first question. Tasks handle the second. Three Levels of Assignment You can assign at three levels, and choosing the right one Managing Projects · 10 min read Adding and Managing Folders in Atarim Two Kinds of Folder Worth knowing before you start, because they are created differently and the second gets extra controls. Kind Created with What Managing Projects · 10 min read