How I Use Notion.so to Plan my Week
One of my goals for 2020 was to simplify my planning process. I’ve always loved notebooks and planners and goal tracking, but I never developed a really cohesive system with so many branches.
01 What is Notion?
I happened to stumble on this app when I was catching up with Francesco over at Keep Productive. He is the Notion master, he even has a course on how to use it. As I dug into the program more and more, I became obsessed.
It’s hard to even describe Notion because it’s such a diverse tool. Bullet journaling is to notebooks as Notion is to the internet. It’s a note system (think Evernote), a database system (Air Table), a task manager (think Google Tasks), and a personal wiki all in one.
The best way to really understand what Notion is and what it can do is to scroll through their homepage and play with their live sandbox or even better, just make an account and click around! You can’t mess it up when you’re starting with an empty canvas, and good ol’ control Z can step in if needed.
Okay, so let’s assume you’re on board with this whole notion thing, let’s talk about how I actually use this thing to plan out my week.
02 Notion, Practically
I think the best way to understand Notion is to see it on video, but if you’re not about that life, or you just don’t have time to watch, here are the main points:
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I have a “Master List” of all my events, holidays, tasks, birthdays, and projects that I reference daily. At the beginning of each week, I braindump everything into this database and then organize it and plan when to get things done.
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I have a weekly meal planner, we plan out our food for the week and it auto-populates our grocery list. I used THIS template to create it and then modified it a bit to fit in my workflow.
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I update my weekly habit tracker as needed (I also do this daily) and I make a new journal entry at least every week to word-vomit and get some ideas out.
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I keep track of my money in our expense tracker to match my bank statements.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExTLhYCeXk&w=854&h=480]
03 Building Your System
With Notion, you can build a planner exactly as you need it to be. Decide what kind of planning processes you need and built it as needed! Here are some quick ideas to get you started:
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Meal Planner
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Content Calendar
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Social Media Planner
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Sports Schedule
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Class Assignments
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Project Manager
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Weekly Tasks
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Progress on your Goals
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Habit Tracking
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Perpetual Calendar
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Monthly Budget
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Bucket List
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Daily Log / Journal
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Bible Study Journal
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Sermon Notes
You could probably find a template for any and all of this somewhere on the web, but part of the fun is building a page to suit your needs exactly. Get creative with headings, colors of text and images. Utilize the “Add a View” feature to view your tasks in list, calendar or database form.
If you’re new to Notion, starting with a template can really help you get a feel for how to build something, and then you can edit it to fit your needs.
If you already use Evernote, Asana or Trello as a planning system, you can easily import your existing content with the “Import” button. Learn more about importing here.
If you’ve ever used a bullet journal before, think of Notion as the digital version of this. You can have a super basic task list with due dates, or you can design custom and beautiful planner with various aspects. It’s all up to you on how complicated or simple you make your system. The possibilities are virtually endless.
04 Need Some Inspiration?
One of my favorite things about Notion is how many options there are for a setup. Just because I have my week set up this way doesn’t mean it’s the way that will work for you. I put together a playlist of Notion videos as well as a list of templates you can use to get some inspiration and more ideas.
If you like task management based on larger goals and projects
If you have lots of habits you want to track
If you like to view tasks by today and tomorrow
If you want an all-in-one digital planner
If you’re a fan of the GTD method
What planning system do you currently use? Would you go all digital or have you already? Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments.
