Transcripts
1. Introduction: Does this sound familiar? You're excited about
your new class and you have ideas everywhere. Maybe they're in your head in your notebook in a
messy Google doc. Maybe you even got sticky
notes all over your workspace. Then somewhere along the way, you just get overwhelmed and lose the overview of
what needs to be happening. What's already being recorded, what still needs to be recorded. Where is that script? You just go blank. I'm Alma Bian Saluna. I'm an artist, but I'm also a
teacher here on Skillshare, so I've been where you've been. Over the years, I've created a simple system that helps me to get that overview and see what
my tasks are my links are, my files are all in one place. In this short class, I will show you a light
version of that template. You won't learn how to
create a full online course. Instead, I will show
you how you can create a workspace where all the pieces of your class will
come together. We're going to
organize your content, your lessons, your to do
just in one clear space. We're going to set out
your class space using different templates
and a clear structure that fits the way you work. You can start building
with more focus. You don't need any
experience with notion, but it could help if you do. A template that belongs to
this class you'll find in the class resources
is completely free and fully customizable
to your needs. Well, let's start
cleaning up and tidying up and get an overview
of your online course.
2. Class Project: Use the free notion
template from this class to set up
your own class page. You go to the top right corner
and you have those ducts. Over here, you can sign up or login with your notion account, or you can just
duplicate this template. If you don't have
an account yet, you can make an account or login to your
account. Over here. But when you're
already logged in, you can also press duplicate, and then you will see
your notion account, and it will ask
you if you want to edit to a particular section. For me, it's on IBM's
Fallon's notion to private. Then you get on the
left bottom corner, your template is being added. And when you wait, you
can see C template. And when you click C template, this will take you to
your own template. For this project, we're going to ask you to make
your own course, maybe add one or two
tasks in the checklist. You could add some class info, make your first lesson, or maybe you even going to
give this class a name. And when you've done this, you can make a screenshot or make walk through video
like I'm doing here, screen recording that you can
add to the project section. You can do it by going into Skillshare to project
and resources. Then you're going to
go to submit project. Now you can add your
recording or your image. You can do a description, maybe add some other things
if you want to and then hit Publish. Now you're done.
3. Why Class Structure Matters: Like I said in the introduction, you're full of ideas and
you start doodling them, writing them down
in your notebook, you're starting to
make a course outline, maybe in Google Docs. You start filming, saving
them on your camera roll, making your thumbnails,
putting them in Kanva. And then you need that one film, that one piece of footage, that one script when
you're editing, and you can't find it anywhere. That's when you think, I wish
I put it all in one place. That's exactly why class
structure matters. It doesn't matter
if you're making your first class or
maybe your tenth class. When you keep
everything together, like your description,
your lessons, your PDFs, it makes
the process go so much smoother because
you stop second guessing. You see what's done and what
still needs to be done, and it's more likely that
you're actually going to finish and then
publish your course. The good news, you don't need a complicated
system to do so. Yes, you can do it
in the Cloud or on an external drive.
I do that too. But I like to combine all
those files with my task list. That's where notion comes
in because I can put it all together and that
template that I use, you can use too and you
can customize it to your own needs and you can
start using it right now.
4. Overview of the Notion Template: Well, this is the
overview of the template. It consists of three
separate sections. Before you start,
class and tasks. I recommend that you go to before you start
before you start doing anything to the template before you start
editing anything. Because when you go here, it explains to you why it's important to duplicate
before you customize, so you always have a master copy and how you actually do it. Then you have the class
section and the task section. And the class section consists of two different overviews. Over here, you have all the
information on your class. And with class overview, it's divided in
three subsections. Class info. So that's
the class description, project description or
some general information about your total class. But the lessons, there
are lesson specific. So there's lesson one, lesson two, lesson three. Well, I hope you come
up with better names. Like, for example, for
a course on Procreate, you have a lesson on masks. You have a lesson on how to edit your Canvas or those kind of
things you have over here. And with marketing, you
should think of like an Instagram reel
or your newsletter or maybe a postage you
put on Skillshare. Because you don't only do marketing when
you launch a course. That's a big misconception
because you also do marketing before you launch a
course because you want to make people eager, you want them to
want your class. And then we have
our task section. In the task section, those are all the tasks
you need to do. You have the to do
list over here, but you could also go to status. This is the same as the
class progress board because am I just
planning this task? Am I actually doing the
task, or is the task done? And it's full, I love this part because this is
set on this week. So over here you will see everything that you have
planned for this week, so you know exactly what to do, and in what order you
have to do those tasks. In later videos, I'll show
you more in depth how you actually add some class info or lessons and how
you make a new task.
5. Class Management: This is the center of your
course creation workflow. This is where everything comes together from planning
your content, your progress, your assets. And like I said, before you
have the class overview, and you have the progress board. And it doesn't matter if you add a new page over here
in the class overview, or if you add a new page
on your progress board. Wow, say, add a new page, and we'll just call
it Class description. And then we're going to open it. And since we just add new
page at the planning section, it says plan over here as well. But when you start on doing it, you can simply check this one, and then it shifts from the plan section to
the doing section. You can also add a tag. You have a divided
in class info. That's all the general
descriptions or the general information
around your class, or you can choose lessons
when specific lesson, or you could choose marketing. Well, now it's class info. I could add deadline,
but I can also add other properties if I want to. Of course, then I can just
write my class description, but I could also
choose a template. And if I would go to class Info, I could choose class description that would really fit this page. I could use class projects. I could also do graphics. And why would I do graphics? Usually you do graphics with each lesson because
each lesson has its own video or maybe
it's lesson thumbnail. But I also have a thumbnail
that suits the whole class. I also have a handout, maybe. So that's something that doesn't really fit just a
specific lesson, but just fits the whole class, and that's what I
do with class info. But like I said, probably class description would
be the best fit for now. So I'll check class description. And I get just a few
questions I could answer. And if I answer all
those questions, I could just copy and
paste this text and put it on the platform
that I'm using so the student knows
what the class is about. For example, here, first, I just give a short summary
for what a class is about, and then I'll go more into depth from what you will learn
during this class. And why should you
take this class? For example, when
it's procreate class, why should I take this class? And why shouldn't
I take just one of the other procreate classes?
Who's this class for? Is it for beginners or it's
for advanced students, or maybe it's for moms or
maybe it's for IT students? And of course, the
materials that they need for this course or class. I like to finish with
a call to action. One more, for example,
procreate tips, check out my other class, procreate fundamentals, and
follow me on Skillshare. If you do another
platform, of course, you could add follow
me on Instagram or subscribe to my
newsletter or something. You could also skip this line, but I like to have a call
to action at the bottom. Well, this was just something
that had something to do with class info. But now I would like to
add something to lessons. Of course, that works
exactly the same. It's called this a lesson one, and I'm opening it. Again, I can write
down whatever I want, but I could also
choose a template. This one is divided in
different sections. It has a resources section
and a graphic section. In the resources section, I start with supplies. These aren't really the supplies
that student might need, but supplies that I might need
to make this lesson work. I have the research
section because maybe I did some research to make
this a powerful lesson. Maybe I watch YouTube videos. I read articles, blogs, got inspired by Tatok. I can add all those
researches in here. And then I got notes. And over here, I put the notes that I like to add, for example, my fors over text
if I would use one, or some pointers
or some checklist of things that I really want
to discuss in this lesson. And then we go to
the graphic section, and over here we have video. And we have thumb
nail. And with video, I have divided in raw
video and vinyl. Why? Because when I only
save the vinyl video, and Procreate gets an
update, software update. So, for some reason, not every button or every
gesture works the same. I need to update my video
and I don't want to film the whole video over again. Then I could just wrap
the raw material and just tweak it a little
bit to make it work. I won't have to alter
everything in this lesson. Of course, I have my thumbnail. This is not where
I used to store the thumbnail that's actually supposed to go with
the total lesson. Now, this is the thumbnail that specifically belongs
to this lesson. So over here, all the
graphics are lesson specific. If we go to the graphic
template that you would add to the
class info section, there you will add
all the graphics that will fit the total course. This is lesson specific. And of course, over here, I can use a tag lesson or shift it to one of
the other sections. Add a section if I
want to the status, and maybe even the
date of a deadline. This works the same
for marketing. I won't go over
all the templates. Maybe you're going to
make your own template, maybe you're going
to use a blank page. This works pretty much the same as all these
other sections.
6. Task Management: Let's take a look at
the task section. This is where you keep track of everything you need
to do from outlining class to filming
and marketing all in one place connected
to this one course. And you can simply
start by adding your own task just to
click on New task. And then I can write the name down or I can go to
open immediately. And I can give it a name. For example, I would
say film introduction. I can connect this to a course. That's when you have
multiple courses like you have in
the Voll version. I can add a due date, I can add effort. Because it low effort? Is it medium or do I have It
doesn't take a lot of time, a lot of energy to do this task? I can add files or
media if I want to. Always says when the
last edited time, you know when the
last time you were actually working on this task, you could say priority. Is low priority? Is it medium regular task
or is it high priority? Is this the first
thing you need to do? You don't have to fill
out all these things. But the reason why I do this, if I don't know what
tasks to do next, I could go to my timeline
what to do this week, or I can check out which are my highest priorities because
they need to be done now. Low priority can
be done tomorrow. And of course, I have a status. Is it like in a planning phase? Am I working on it or is
the task actually done? I can add some tags. Is this a filming task? Is this an editing task? Is it administration task? Maybe you have different
options you want to add. You can just fill
in the task here. This has something to
do with the system. Is this a system task? Then it has a tag
here, and over here, I could always
choose the system if I want to add this to a
different task at a later date. Of course, I can add
multiple properties as well, but you don't have to because some people love
tracking every detail, and others just need three
core steps to stay focused. Add as many tasks as you like, rename them or delete them
if you don't use them. Over here, you can give a
description of your task. Make it as specific as you can. And maybe your task actually
has some subtask then you can actually put them
in here you need to do. And when you've done
that specific sub task, you can click and it is done. I go back to my home page and I want to see everything that has a high
priority, for example. Now, nothing has high priority, I just say and say hi. I have everything a long list. Imagine this list is super long. I can always go to filter
and say I only want to see everything with
priority high. Now I will only see the ones
that have a high priority. This way, I can filter
everything that I want. And of course, over
here, I see my status. And if I would have
given the task a date, I would see it over
here in my calendar. This space is here to
support your creative flow. It's not here to overwhelm you. So start small. Even just writing down your next three actions
can give you some clarity. You can always come back and build out your list as
the course develops.
7. Customize Template: Is fully customizable.
In this video, I'll show you how
to safely tweak it to match your own
teaching style or workflow because you can easily change the
contents of any template. For example, the structure of your class description
or your brand colors. But if you go to a
page, let's say, Lesson one, and you just change something let's change the color to your brand colors. Let's see. Pink is
your brand color. You can easily change
it, but it will only change in this
particular page. It won't change in your next page because
when I add a new lesson, Lesson two, and I'm actually
going to open that one. Go to Lesson. You
won't see it in pink. So if you want to make a
change and you want to see it in every new page that you
make with that template, you should change the template. To do so you can go
to new and go to the drop down and go to the lesson template because that's what
I want to change, and go to these dots, click on them and say edit. Now when I edit, for example, make a video pink or just
change the text or anything. It's now changed
in the template. So when I go back and
make a new lesson for Lesson free and I
choose the lesson template, you will see that the new color that you just added
from your brand colors, the pink is still here. Once you've made it your own, you can lock the template to avoid accidentally changing it. This way, you can still
use the template, but you can't actually
delete or move anything. I will show you
because then you will go to the template again. Go to Lesson, click
on this, go to Edit. I'll just change it back
to black default color. And I want it to stay like this. Now I can change
whatever I want. I can even remove things. But when I lock it, I do it with three dots up here and I go down to Log page. Now I can't edit anything
on here if I want to. But I can still use a template. So when I go back. I make lesson. For, for example, I go to the Lesson template. I can still add
things if I want to, but they will only change on this particular page and
not on the full template. So you can customize it to make all the checklist make
all the questions or may the brand colors
change them into your style to fit your
workflow or just fit you.
8. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for
joining me in this class. I hope this class gave
you more structure and a peace of mind while
planning your next class. I would love to see
what you've made. You can upload it in the
project section or tag me when your new class is life because I would love
to see your classes too. If you like this class,
please leave review. Other students would
also know what to expect and it really supports my
work here on Skillshare. And while you're
at it, if you want to keep updated with
my new classes, press the Follow button here on Skillshare and
you'll be updated. Thanks again for joining me and I hope to see you next time.
Anna Berends van Loenen, Professional Messmaker
