How to Notion: Boost Daily Productivity

1. Daily System Intro: so there's a general consensus. That notion is incredible for boosting productivity. But the challenge with that as many people are really focused on integrating different platforms, whether it's Google drive and all these things into your notion, and it kind of misses the component of hungry actually make compounding impact over time. And so the biggest change that has really brought the most value into my life is the ability to use notion on a day to day basis to really set up my days and create a really easy to use system that allows me to get more done and really get the most out of my dates . I'm a huge notion fanatic where I've even changed my personal website to be built on notion . And so I'm super excited to be able to work with you in order to kind of help bring some of the changes that have been really helpful for me into your life. Potentially, I hope to see you on the other side and let's just get started 2. Final Product: all right. So before we get started, I wanted to just provide a quick overview of what this is going to end up looking like. So this is at a very high level, what we'll kind of have. And so once we start going through, it will make a lot more sense. But all kind of just quickly Look, peek into this morning log and night check as well. So these air basically set up in a way so that if you just click on the template, we it populates it, however you would like. And so, as we go through the individual videos, you'll start seeing why we do every single part. But I wanted to at least provide some sort of preview, more so than the one that was provided in the introduction. And so now we can systematically go through these different components, but I thought we would at least get a quick peek 3. Preview: Morning Log: All right, so let's just start from the top and we'll start with the morning lock. So the way this is set up right now is that it's a preview into the gallery. So this morning log is actually connected to another database where all of the stuff is stored. And the reason I did this is because I wanted a place where I could just look at the specific day. But if in the in the future, I want to ever reflect back on something or kind of look at general trends in my productivity, or what days are the best or things of that nature, then I have this database of all this information, and so that's kind of why it's set up that way. But whenever we hit on you, we found I created this main template that I use every single day, and it kind of populates it with an array of things. So first, the title, the title I use as a place just to kind of describe how I'm feeling, what my goals are for the day, I really just try toe push my ability to capture as much as quickly as possible and So today we can just be like film class. Um and so we have that. And now here is kind of what I I kind of have this just so that I'm able to contextualized how I'm feeling that day and just kind of future reference. I'm pretty content and happy and excited today, and so we'll just click those three sleep. I did not sleep much last night. It was about 5.5 hours. I typically meditate in the mornings, and so I would put a time there. And a lot of this is just for personal reasons. And so this is really a place where you can kind of add as much stuff or as little stuff as you would like, But it's a really easy way to just, you know, within half a second, be able to keep track of things that are meaningful to you every single day. And so they say that if you don't track something you can't, it's really hard to change it. And so where I really tried to do this every single day. Now, this daily ideas component is from this book that I read a while back ago about how, In order to be an idea machine or someone that's like constantly just seeing novel stuff in the world, it's important to push yourself in how you go about the world and tracking these ideas and things of that nature. And so every single day I also have this connected to another database, and I Congar into that in a little bit but connected to a different database where I will just every single day. I'll ask myself to think of five ideas for that day. So if I click here, say, today's idea is in, Um, I want to make a class on how to make in notion website come and lick. It's not necessarily something profound, but it's something that came to me and it's worth writing down. And so then, based on the idea, I'd like to raid it just so that I think I can really give it some value or just internal value to myself, so that whenever I'm looking back on these ideas and I have the time to pursue some of them , I can actually have information and data that I can cause I can look at in order to prioritize rather than trying Teoh get overwhelmed by you know, 50 ideas from the past 10 days. Yeah, from the past 10 days. And so let's just call this in nine. Because I think having a notion website is awesome and so you can populate this and there's all of this and so then action items. So this action item section and extra stuff is really about making it possible to quickly think about the things I want to do. So every single day I wake up and I'm like, Ah, yes, this is one thing I need to do but you know, to do list can really fall apart in the level that sometimes you may have a deadline that's due in a long time from now, and sometimes it may be immediate, and so I use action items as a way to actually brainstorm every single day. What is the most relevant thing for me today? And I try to put just a quick jotting system right here, and then I followed that up with extra stuff in the sense that oh, this would be nice to complete today, but it's not necessarily for me to really feel content to our fuel like today was really a productive day. After that, we have the agenda in the agenda. We have basically a tabled that I have set up with all the different time slots in order to kind of place these items from the action items into here and then check it off. So it becomes my daily checklist, which I populate every single day in order to actually accomplish what I want to accomplish . And for that day, specifically and again, it comes back to the idea of so many times to do list can become overbearing. And so I went up and we'll go into this in a little bit. But I wanted to create a place for me to pick and choose the things I needed to do that day and then place it in up agenda where now, depending on the time I know exactly what I need to do rather than thinking back and being like Osh, should I do this or this and many times this this period where we're trying to decide what we should do can actually be the most detrimental to our productivity because rather than doing something, we end up debating what's more valuable and things of that nature. But if every single morning you're able to outline the things that you really want to do and you put it in a place where now all you have to do is just do it, it's actually it takes a lot less willpower. And so there's this. And then here I just have a couple of attach the databases that I use. So the M cat is a medical school exam that I'm studying for, and then workouts are, you know, workouts. And so I have a log there which allows me toe constantly, refer to this single page every single day clock and also stay connected with everything else that's relevant. So this is arguably the page that I spend the absolute most amount of time on on notion. 4. Build: Morning Log: really build this out. And so, as we saw the set up is actually just a gallery, um, which is on some place, and so we'll just call this our morning log log, and now we can go back to my date, and so we'll just have this off to the side, because it's not actually what will be viewing. You can actually put this anywhere. And what we do is here we have a thing that we call create are, actually, yeah, create link database. You can do that. And then morning, bug. And so now we'll populate like this. This is where we will out of you, and we'll make it a gallery. And so whenever we do this, that's just also gallery. Okay? We didn't even delete this view. Yes, yes. And so we have this card set up now with this card set up, if you go to properties, you'll actually be able to change the size of the card. And so I really don't like it taking up too much space. And so I actually make the cards really small. And this content, I make it effectively none. And then you it's possible to go from there. But obviously, if you want it to take up more space things of that nature, you know, uh, all of that is in your hands. And then what I do is I actually filter this out to only be so Date is exactly, uh, day is today. There we go. And so now what happens is we will only see things that were made today, which allows you to basically eso Whenever you wake up, you won't even have this one. And so now if you hit new, you have your log for today and now we have to make or template. And so there's a handy dandy button right there that says great template. And so morning log template. And so now we have this. And this is where you can start adding things that are relevant to you so feeling. And so then, you know, once you have this category, you can start adding all of these things. I feel excited, tired, happy, etcetera. And so at this point, you can start to populate it with feelings. You can start to populate it with other things that you find important. So worked out question mark and If you want to just make this a checklist, you can do that. And so checklist. Do you do yoga if you do yoga? Did I do yoga today? And so it's really easy to kind of just populate it with anything that is important to you . And so now this. What we saw next was kind of this daily ideas thing that I've created in order to just have ideas and just populate them. And so we can very easily do another create link database. And there's our daily ideas. It's like it knows what's coming. And so we have all of this stuff. And so then once again, you filter it to be exactly, Date added, is today. And so there we go. Now we have this, and it's kind of taking whatever. And so since we know it's today, we don't even have to see this so we can just hide this category. I d. Is this one thing that I played around with but relates to what other ideas? So this is a place where you can start connecting different ideas, but really, if you want to just kind of have it, how I had it with the idea and the reading very simple to do next. What we had was the quick notes. And so this is I think it was aged three, and so you know, you go quick, notes, quick notes, and what other we had. We also had this component of extra things. Extra notes. We can move this around, etcetera, and then I click up here. I do the three lines in order to draw a line, but you can't really see it because it's on drug mode. But it's comforting to me. And so the dash with the space creates a bulleted lists. If you do actually, man, if you do the carrot with the space, it creates a toggle bliss. And so all of this is kind of whatever you feel most comfortable with in whatever you enjoy the most. And so you have this set up now, and one issue is you can start. Highlighting is one of my favorite things to do in order to actually see how the cells are set up. Because if you start clicking and this thing is not fully taking up the whole page, then you're kind of you're in a column setting, and so that's important for me to know. After that we have this link database and then So what I did with the Data Day component is it's actually a table that's in line are no groups. It's a table that is in line. And so the thing with this is now this table will actually disappear every single day. Um, so it's not necessarily being previously recorded, But if I want to look back on a day, I can still access it. And basically the whole point of this is for me. It's not relevant to look back on individual, like be able to see all of the tasks I've done on particular days and things of that nature . And so this is just a really quick wayto have everything that's relevant, but not over horde on this information. So then here we can do times a lot. And so, depending on, if you like blocking off every single amendment minute of the day, or if you enjoy the component of kind of having a period blocked off, but also having the flexibility and that for, you know, things that came up that you didn't expect to come up and things of that nature, it's possible to kind of set it up that ways. And so say you wake up at nine, you're gonna go 1912 and then you won't do 12 to 3 and then you want to do 3 to 6. And so obviously these colors air not necessarily the most attractive. So maybe we could make a little more comforting. And so we have the task. Are we have the time than name? Here is the task. And then files is the way I had this was Did I finish it? So we have check box and we couldn't squeeze this. And another huge part of this that I find extremely valuable is the ability to have it have the task and then immediately do the things that need to be done. So, for example, if I'm doing a task that I don't necessarily need to constantly update in an other area, like for example, I need toe, um, I need to make sure that I go pick up groceries. Um, then I can actually just open this page up, and I didn't make my list of things I need and so I could be like, Oh, I need cucumbers and I need milk and etcetera. And so I think that conveys the point. But basically, it gives you a chance to go through all of this. And so, if you actually notice, I we ended up doing all of this in here. And so now and every day you open up, you had new. You kind of have this morning template. And you can add this. If you want to add a Nikon, you can add iPhones. If you want to give it a cover photo, you can give it a cover photo. It's really at this point. The flexibility is up to you and most people that will be watching this classes are pretty familiar with these various components. Fantastic. I'll see in the next video. 5. Night Log: now we have or nightly check in. And so that again is a gallery. Full page. You just call this night, Shatin log just to keep everything consistent. And so we have night log, and that is also a linked database. As you can see, I really like these Create linked data bases. And so this will be for our night log. And again, we kind of face the same things that we did with our morning logs. Um, I'll just fly through this really quickly. You can make these look really, really small. Mum on small? No, here we have all these pages and again you come here, you make a template. And so for me, my night checking is really just thoughts that I've kind of had throughout the day that I just want to kind of lock on paper. So I don't think too much about. Or if I feel that, like something was upsetting me, this is a place where I kind of just go. And so the reason I'm not even doing a preview for this is it's really a simple as quick doctor. This thoughts, and then this is my entire template. And so whenever I come here. Obviously, I would label the template, but that's not necessarily of biggest concern. And so we have this. If you ever want to change the label, you just come here, just go at it and go chicken. So now if you just click here chicken template, it populates. And so it's really simple, but I dont s so I don't want to spend too much time on that. One thing I think that is worth spending time on is the ability to put these two things side by side. So if you've ever been on here and you try to do this, you'll play around with it forever, and nothing will really happen. And so the way you get around us is you come up here and you turn this into a page and then same with this. You come up here and you turned this into a page. Now, since these air pages, you can actually from side by side. And so now, once they're side by side, you can turn it in mind, and you can Candice in line, and now we have it side by side. Um, it's one of those small hacks that many people really struggle with. And it's just frustrating just cause, you know, you don't want to necessarily take up so much space for something that you're just trying to do every single day for a little bit. And so there is that component now, So now we have the night log and will be moving on. 6. Preview: Task Management: So now what we have here under our morning and night check is our task in box, and we can see that these two are also all linked data bases. And so basically, what I've done here is I just have. And then here we have a project list, and this part is it's not even as relevant. So I think I'm really going to just focus on this task list because this again comes back to the idea of we have a bunch of task and sometimes some of them just aren't relevant or some of them may not have a deadline. And so how do we capture information that is of utmost priority so that every single day, we're able to kind of quickly just look at this task inbox And so if we ever want to add something, we can just click here and add something super quickly. We know what's important. We know what has a due date, and then we just go into our morning log and were able to quickly insert this information rather than trying to kind of keep up with all of these different pieces of information going on every single day. and so now will really focus on making this test list as well as how do we create these linked data bases in order to just quickly view the most relevant information? 7. Build: Task Management: So can you guess what we're gonna do now? Ha ha. Surprise, Surprise. We're going to make a database, and this time, rather than a gallery, we're going to make a table. And so here we can have our task lists and I primarily actually only used this view and so we can just stick with this. And so let's for the name. Let's make it the task tags. This is a system that a lot of people kind of have their own way to go about this, and so we can keep it as tags. And, ah, the system that I really uses, one that allows me to know exactly what it entails on a very quick level. And so, for example, if I have to check in on a friend, then that task is drastically different than making this course or making our create website. And so both of these things are very different. And so what I use this tags thing for is to kind of capture this. So one thing that I have is what do I need for it? So will it be Can I do it from my iPhone, or do I need my laptop do? Is it low energy or is it jai energy? And just simply having this call him here That allows me to quickly assess what things a relevant What? Things aren't necessarily as relevant. It allows me to. So, for example, checking in on a friend. You know, I can just do that for my phone on low energy, making this course, Yeah, only in my laptop, and it will require a lot more energy. So this is just a quick way to add that component. Another component that's really important task is due date, not do two feet due date. And so here we have, uh, our date. So this again you can create it, however, is most relevant for you. And so, you know, and whatever date that you need to do these different things by and just so that I don't drive myself crazy, we will go ahead and populate this as well. So we have these different things, and the main point of this is really just create a place where we can have all of the information and then the views and how well look and all that we can figure out later. Now is it priority? Priore? So how important is it for me? And typically, I do this on a check box system just because it is easiest to actually see whether, like, see at a glance whether it's a priority or not. So we have priority. We have due date, and at this point, you can kind of add whatever tags are most relevant to you. But we can just set it up this way. Like, for example, if you are an entrepreneur and you have your own business and you have your personal life or you have your job, there are many different components here. And so at this point, we want to maybe say from part of life, maybe let's just put life. And so here we can make this another category where we can make this select. And so here we have to choose. Okay, this is personal. Okay, this is for my job. Um, this is for my like, say, one component is for fitness, and so you can maybe have a fitness one, even though this is not fitness and so really easy to categorize it by this component so that now you can really capture this information. So now we have this place where we have all of this information. Let's go back here. So what we've really done is one. We have a place to store information, and one, we have a place to access to information. And so now we'll start creating surprise, surprise linked data bases. And so our databases here will be task list. And so now this is going to populate it. And so as we get more tasks, the way we go about this changes. So, for example, say we want, like, say, we have a thing that doesn't have a due date, and it's just one of those things we want to do. But it doesn't really matter when. So, like make a YouTube channel, it doesn't necessarily have a due date. And sometimes whenever you start putting due dates on things that don't have a duty, it reduces the impact of the duty and so say we just don't have a due date on it. And so at this point, what we start doing is now we'll start adding views. And so let's say do it is one of these views and the way we will go about this is we will filter this based on stuff that surprise surprise is not empty. And so now the making YouTube channel has disappeared because this guy is a thing that is no longer making YouTube channel doesn't have a duty. And so we have that. Maybe we want to say that making this course is a huge priority, which it is, of course. And so what we do is we can actually just copy paste this here so that we have another thing and say now on this one, So you automatically go back to this untitled general view, and so maybe we can add priority. And so here, once this pops up, we can add a filter that is based off of this Priority is checked. And so now only things that have priorities will be checked. And so we can these air the two main components that I use on a day to day basis. And then there is 1/3 thing that is very similar to what we've done here to basically make things relevant, Um, and really easy to access. And that is the task in box. So the point with the task inbox is we want to be able to again. You can just copy paste this once a t. Do you say we want to? Now let's do this. We wanted to just be. If it has a due date home, we will filter it out. And so this basically becomes a place where is empty whenever. Now we have this. Basically, until we give something a due date, it will stay in this inbox. And so say we're walking down the street and we think of something we need to do. We can very quickly come here hitting you, and you can just type it so you know Oh, ona make a twitter. Um, but I don't have a due date on it. And so now it will continue to be here until we put a due date on it. Once we put a due date on, it will shift over. And as you can see, it came into here, and at this point, you know, we can start filtering this out. So now we sort this ascending Lee. And so okay. Based on when the due date is, we can see this list of things that we need to do which is super important. One column that is arguably the most important that we happen to skip over is the column of Done, and so this again is a check box. And so, with this column, what we can do now is any time we have a particular task of any sorts we can add. Another filter that says and done is empty. So now any time we finish, something will disappear. And so that's one of those things you can you can do for all of these different homes. See, I won't necessarily show you just because it's exactly what we did here. But this is kind of how we can have this set up. And so, as you decide to figure how you want your notion, there's a lot of possibilities and how you do this. And sometimes you know, if the thing in your inbox is super simple, you might not just put a due date on, and you'll just go straight to done. You add. The second filter of done is empty, and now you can just update it constantly from there. And so this is basically a way to store all of your tasks and with that, we kind of create the flexibility that we're looking for if you want to start titling these off. So if we want to call this task in box say we really like colors and so you start, we start giving it a nice color. And so we have here this we can call due date, and at that point, the flexibility is up to you. 8. Clean Up & Personalize: all right. So it seems like we've kind of built out the majority of the things that we're really present in the day to day management component that I've created. At this point, it's really up to you on how you want to go about this. Do you want to add different icons? Do you On that cover photos? That's kind of completely on you and how you want to go about that. And so at this point, what do you do with these different categories? And so this is really storage information. And so what you can do is you can create a separate page where you just story all of these . You can put these wherever you like. If you I really don't like it. What you can do is you can make this a toggle. And within this Tuggle, you just copy paste these things in there. And so now you can even keep it on this page, and it'll just be a minor little thing down here. It's really up to you at this point, but I think we've done a very fairly thorough job of building out a system that will allow you to keep track of all the things that you need in life. And so if some of these things air, you know, lifelong bucket list items, you can easily add that to your Taschen box. Maybe you can even create a category for that on the life component. Is it a bucket list item and you're able to sort accordingly. But whenever you come to your data day task, you're able to go here. No, don't be in the trash. That's all right. You're able to go here, and you are able to very quickly capture the information you need for that day and go from there with that. I think that quickly sums up everything, and now we just have our final goodbye. 9. Thank You: Hey, I'm glad to see you here. I know these conclusion videos. Whenever they dragged out, it really kind of loses its flare because many tens at this point, we just want to be done with the class. And so thank you so much for taking this class. If you could take a brief second and leave a review, maybe even highlight the way is that you are going to use this or the ways that you're using it Absolutely fantastic. Just for other people who are kind of in your shoes and want to learn how to really maximize their days through notion. Thank you so much once again and I hope to see you in another class.