Notion has been spreading like wildfire by way of the tech world, with the productiveness app being present in increasingly more workflows the world over. But it surely is not only for work – throughout 2024 I used its free model to plan and observe nearly each a part of my life, together with my wedding ceremony.
What’s Notion?
Notion is a versatile, cloud-based productiveness app that permits you to create your individual databases and extra. It has an enormous vary of features and views that make it supreme for organizing absolutely anything. Whereas there are business-focused subscription choices, there’s a free choice for private tasks.
I’m nearly ashamed to say I haven’t spent a penny on Notion simply but, with its free model proving to be greater than highly effective sufficient for my wants up to now. I’ve even utilizing been Notion to handle my small enterprise, together with deadlines and invoicing.
What precisely is Notion? It is usually nebulously described as a ‘productiveness app’, however it could achieve this a lot that it’s arduous to pigeonhole it. Once you open the app initially, it could really feel like a easy note-taking app or doc administration device, letting you jot down absolutely anything. With a while and steerage, nonetheless, it could flip into absolutely anything you want it to.
Hardcore Notion followers have constructed total challenge administration suites and activity managers inside the app, however you do not have to go that far to learn from its productiveness powers.
Right here’s how Notion has been an enormous boon to my life throughout 2024, and the way it may do the identical for you this coming yr.
1. Set your objectives
In the beginning of 2023, I sat down and plotted out a collection of objectives to perform. These ranged from planning and paying for a marriage, to purchasing a brand new automotive, and extra.
I created a easy activity checklist for this, and dropped it onto my ‘Private Dashboard’ Notion web page so it’s at all times front-and-centre, nevertheless it’s simple to create a activity supervisor inside the app.
By hitting the ‘/’ key you may convey up a collection of blocks, and the To-Do checklist one will allow you to create a listing of duties. Having it useful on any given day is right, letting me rapidly jot issues down.
On an identical observe, you may create observe pages after which kind them into folders and hyperlink to them from elsewhere in Notion. That permits you to do absolutely anything from fast scribbles to constructing total wikis.
2. Decide a view
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What separates Notion’s databases from extra conventional spreadsheets are its Views. Notion can swap information into easy-to-use choices like a Kanban board, Calendar, or stripped down tables.
For example, I’m a contract author, and I’ve an enormous spreadsheet I name my planner. It has shopper data, what I’m writing, deadlines, charges, and all the pieces included, however from a consumer’s perspective it’s a little bit of a large number as a spreadsheet.
With a few clicks, although, I can flip it right into a Kanban board (assume Trello) and transfer tasks from planning to completion and invoicing as I work on them, with color-coded labels as they transfer.
I may even swap to a nifty calendar view to see when issues are due, or what I’ve accomplished in any given month, or swap to a preset that reveals solely a very powerful items of knowledge for after I’m checking out my taxes.
Different views embody Charts, Timelines, and even a Gallery choice.
3. Share a House
Very similar to one thing like Google Docs, you should utilize Notion to collaborate with colleagues and staff members.
With the Marriage ceremony planning part I constructed, my now-wife and I have been capable of see upcoming funds, emails we’d obtained, and extra.
We even set a mammoth guidelines, divided into sections, to assist issues run easily, and if we’d needed to, we may’ve shared it with the venue and suppliers, too.
Notion may be as open or as restrictive as you’d like. There are a bunch of wedding ceremony planning templates (just like the one above) to get you began.
4. Discover a template or construct your individual
Notion’s open-ended nature imply it could really feel a bit of overwhelming at first if you’re taking a look at all that clear area, however Templates make it simple to import instruments from creators across the globe.
That may enable you get began, after which you may share your individual customized templates in future.
Notion is so assured in its potential to construct great-looking pages that you would be able to publish them to the net as total web sites constructed inside the app.
However a superb place to get began are Notion’s greatest templates for setting new yr’s objectives or the filtered checklist of New Yr templates. Begin together with your broader objectives first, then drill down to creating month-to-month targets and behavior trackers.
There are over 1,500 free templates dedicated to New Yr’s planning for starters.
5. Combine a calendar
Notion launched its personal Calendar app this yr, which means with a click on of my Mac’s menu bar I can see all of my requires the day.
It has built-in scheduling and time zones, and appears nice, too. One of the best half is that it ties into the principle Notion app, which means you may drag and drop data between the 2, and even combine your calendar in your begin web page so you may see all the pieces booked on a given day.
The staff plans to introduce an e-mail shopper within the close to future, too. However for now all of those current instruments are greater than sufficient to get your 2025 off to highly-organized flier.