How I Organise My Life With Notion



How I Organise My Life With Notion

by Theo Sheppard, medium.com

May 23, 2020 12:05 PM

A beginners guide to the only productivity tool you need.

Screenshot — Notion for Mac

It has been about thirteen months since I first stumbled across Notion, the all-in-one planning application that has now become my (almost) sole productivity tool.

I use Notion to take notes, manage my tasks and keep track of both short and long-term goals. The only other productivity tools I use are the basic reminders app on my phone, Google Keep for jotting down short notes, Google Calendar and Pages/Word on my laptop.

Unsurprisingly, Notion has become incredibly popular over the last couple of years, attracting the likes of Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit.

Notion is so good it makes a devilishly complex problem seem simple.

— Steve Huffman, Co-founder & CEO of Reddit

Notion has a huge array of different ‘page’ layouts, each of which can be used for a different purpose, such as managing a team, planning a blog post or taking notes in a lecture. In this piece, I share a few of my favourite beginner Notion page layouts, including a brief explanation of how I set each of them up.

Hopefully, the ideas I share will be helpful both for those who are new to the tool and for current Notion users who are searching for more potential uses of the tool.

1 — Planning My Week

My ‘Weekly Plan’ is both the epicentre of my Notion setup and the pivot around which much of my life revolves.

Screenshot — Notion: Weekly Plan

To create this page, I have made use of one of Notion’s standard page templates, which can be found under the ‘add a page’ option within the main sidebar. I have formatted my Weekly Plan so that the weekend is lumped together. I do this so that, when viewing Notion on my phone, all of my tasks can be viewed clearly (without certain words being cut-off to save space).

To create each task I hover over the plus (+) sign to the left of each text box. This brings up a selection of ‘block’ options. From this menu, I select the ‘To-do list’ option, which inserts a simple checkbox. After the first task has been created, new tasks can be created by copy and pasting previous tasks or simply pressing enter after each checkbox.

I categorise my tasks using a colour-coding system, such as using red for work and green for exercise. I prefer to change the background colour when highlighting these categories as I think it stands out a little more clearly than just changing the text colour.

To change the background colour, first select a task by highlighting it (i.e. dragging across with a mouse or double-tapping on a mobile device). Then, select the ‘text colour’ button (which generally appears as a capitalised A) and scroll down the drop-down list to find options for background colours.

Once I have completed a task, I press/click on the checkbox square, at which point the task will appear as having been crossed off my to-do list. At the end of each week, I place all of my completed tasks into the ‘Archive’ by selecting, dragging and dropping them onto the grey filing cabinet icon.

2 — Managing My Goals

Another way I use Notion is to record my progress with both short and long term goals.

Screenshot — Notion: Goals

As with my Weekly Plan, the ‘Goals’ page is another of Notion’s pre-prepared templates that can be chosen from the main sidebar. This means that columns for goals that I have completed (i.e. ‘Done’), in progress (i.e. ‘Doing’) and going to do (i.e. ‘To Do) already set up within the template.

I make sure to limit the number of goals that are in progress at one time as this helps me to focus my attention in the most productive way possible. I also try to keep a balance between work/life/health here, something I achieve by ‘tagging’ and colour-coding each goal, e.g. ‘Fitness’.

New goals can be added by pressing/clicking the + symbol and typing your intended goal. Double-clicking a task that has already been created will cause a new page to pop up. This page can be used to add a status (‘To Do’, ‘Doing’ or ‘Done’) to the goal and to tag a goal (e.g. ‘Work’ or ‘Life’).

3 — Tracking My Habits

Easily one of my favourite ways to use Notion is to track positive habits such as drinking 8 glasses of water, practising a language or going for a run.

Screenshot — Notion: Habit Tracking

The Habit Tracker template can be selected from the main sidebar, under ‘Personal’ templates. The name of the habit can be changed by replacing one of the default habits (e.g. ‘Meditate’) to a habit of your choice (e.g. ‘8 Hours Sleep’).

The days of the week should already appear on the template. However, a starting point may need to be selected manually by clicking on the box named ‘Date’ and selecting the appropriate start date from the calendar that appears.

Once habits and dates have been inserted into the template, you can easily mark a habit as completed each day by selecting the corresponding checkbox.

These are just a few simple uses for Notion that help me to organise my life effectively. I also use Notion to take notes and track the books, tv shows and films I watch, among other things. Please let me know if you found this piece helpful as I am considering sharing some more advanced Notion page layouts (as well as a few tips and tricks) in a later article.

Screenshot — Notion: Habit Tracking

Photo by: + sign

In the meantime, you can find a gallery of more Notion page setups here and a breakdown of how productivity guru Thomas Frank uses Notion here.

References