How Notion Changed the Way I Work
From the girl who thought she had the perfect organizational system until Notion came into her life and changed everything she knew about leading a productive, and most importantly, balanced life.
It’s hard to believe the first month of 2021 is coming to a close. Not too long ago, we were jotting down our annual resolutions, writing our manifestations, and honing in on a newly found optimistic mindset, eager to leave the mess of 2020 in the rearview window!
Regardless of everyone’s desperation to embark on a fresh journey in 2021, I’ve always looked forward to the prospect of a new year. From a young age, I associated the new year with organization because that’s when I always received my new agenda. Growing up, I proved to be incredibly punctual and self-disciplined with my stellar organizational system, which heavily relied on my planner. Years later and still following tradition, I recently purchased a new edition of my tried and true Day Designer Daily Planner, which I’ve used for the last two years and have sworn by, ready to fill it with to-do lists, daily journal prompts, and assignments from my very last semester of college.
But, a little over a week into January, during my daily (and far from brief) scroll on my TikTok FYP, I watched a clip about organizing your life through Notion. It showcased how this free, online, and aesthetically pleasing app could become your one-stop digital workspace. Completely customizable, you can add any combination of templates like habit trackers, calendars, assignment lists, and even reading logs and watch-lists.
Intrigued, I downloaded the app and, with the help of this gorgeous pre-made template, I got to work on customizing my own! And while I thought I had perfected my organizational system, consisting of simultaneously using my aforementioned desk planner and Google Calendar, I’m here to tell you why Notion has drastically changed the way I work and live!
My Essentials For Setting Up My Notion
First, I must give credit where credit is due because I would be absolutely nowhere without starting my Notion without this beautifully crafted template. I copied the pre-existing template to my own workspace and adjusted and added new segments that made the most sense for my lifestyle. You can also edit and add your own photos and embed your Spotify playlists to make it even more personal!
My first essential category to my Notion is my ‘College’ page where I keep track of all of my courses, academic calendar, assignments, and lecture notes. On this page, I created sub-categories for each of my Spring semester classes, where I track the classes’ meeting times, Zoom links (gotta love Hybrid learning), professors’ office hours/contact information, projects, syllabi, and entries for each of my lecture notes!
My second essential category is my ‘Daily’ page, where I’ve outlined my morning and nighttime routines as well as a habit tracker. While I’m sure we all agree that we love our daily self-care rituals, I understand some may not find listing out their routines as totally necessary. For me, I find that, while I love to take time for myself in the beginning and end of my day, I’m not the best when it comes to consistency! Whether it’s snoozing my alarm one too many times or staying up too late mindlessly scrolling through socials, sometimes my ideal routines aren’t always the reality. So, I’ve found that writing out these morning and evening routines have actually helped me to follow them!
Similarly, my habit tracker template helps me to stay on track with some new daily practices I am implementing into my routine. When I was reflecting and planning for the new year, I found the majority of my ‘goals’ revolved around living a more balanced life; I always wanted to read more, practice meditation, keep a regular workout routine, and, of course follow my daily and nightly rituals. In a perfect world, that all sounds great. But, let’s be honest, it can be sort of hard to keep track of progress! With my habit tracker, which I now fill out every evening before turning my tech off, I simply enter in whether or not I followed through with these goals!
My third essential category is my ‘Plans & Work’ section, which I like to see as my brain spill! I keep one section for my 2021 Goals and Manifestations, another for random Thoughts + Ideas, and the third for Pitches + Article ideas! This digital journal of sorts is easy to access on my Notion, because we all know that the best ideas often come at the most random of times! Now, I don’t have to worry about where I put down that *life-changing idea* because it’s always in one place!
Why It’s Better Than Any Other System I’ve Tried:
It Focuses on the Importance of Balance
Notion isn’t just for living your best productive life, but rather quite the opposite! Many times, we’re turned off by planners and other organizational tools because they often subconsciously promote the toxic ‘hustle culture.’ As much as we love to Instagram story the cheeky quotes prompted by our daily agendas, most of the time, they are not reminding you to take time for yourself.
On the top of my Notion, I have a reading log and watchlist to subconsciously remind myself that breaks are necessary for my workflow and not to be ashamed of indulging in some me time. Whether it’s creating and tracking reading and movie/TV watching, your workouts, or simply planning an epic podcast and music queue, we all need to remember to add something for ourselves throughout our workday.
It’s An Easy Way To Hold Yourself Accountable For Your Goals
As I mentioned before with the ‘Habit Tracker’ template, I’m now able to seamlessly track my goals in a simple, easy-to-maintain format. Knowing that I will be updating my Notion at the end of the night is sometimes all the motivation I need to practice these routines! I always found the simplest form of satisfaction from crossing something off my to-do list (which I will address in the next point) and this is sometimes all I need to get even the smallest (and oftentimes most beneficial) things accomplished!
It replaces your Google Calendar, Notes App, etc.
I was not exaggerating when I say that Notion is your one-stop digital workspace and replaces several apps that you’re probably juggling in order to stay organized. The Notion Calendar features replace your Google Calendar and, my favorite part, it provides a daily to-do list that you can create and recreate (bye-bye IOS Notes app!)
A quick reminder that, aside from downloading and bookmarking your Notion to your desktop, you can also download the mobile app and access all of these effective features on the go!
It’s really pretty to look at!
While I’ll admit that I am a bit stationary obsessed, with my planner and journal being no exception, I will unfortunately never be the type to scrapbook them with stickers, stamps, and beautiful hand lettering. While my artistic abilities are not quite up to par, my Pinterest skills are! With that, I’ve styled an aesthetically pleasing site that makes it feel like it’s really my own!
Resources For You To Make Your Notion
Alternate Templates:
Recommended Tutorials:
I have not been compensated to promote this resource/application.