College Diaries: Notion won't fix your life (but here's how it helped me)

A look into my school planner on Notion (feat. Carlos Sainz in Ferrari red — IYKYK)

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I’ve had Notion for about five months. For three of those months, the pages I initially created remained untouched and unused. Now, my Notion is a hub for all of my tasks — from personal daily habits to academic assignments and job applications.

At first glance, Notion can seem daunting. When you open the application, there’s a blank page with no instructions and many, many — too many — buttons. The first mistake I made was not immediately scrolling through the marketplace, where creators publish free templates for Notion users to use. If you’re stubborn like me and like to do things yourself, I’ll be the first to tell you that you’re going to struggle without these templates.

Not only do these templates provide pre-made, ready-to-use pages and databases, but they are also a great resource for navigating the extensive features of Notion. I learned a lot about the uses of databases, the difference between pages, databases and views, and the importance of using filters and sorts. Without relying on templates to build my space, I would’ve been stuck at square one and missing out on the features that make Notion distinct from other organizational applications.

Here's a look at a few pages in my Notion:

My home page holds my weekly schedule and priority tasks.

I used a pre-made template from the marketplace for my habit tracker.

All of my course pages are formatted the same, with a table and calendar view of assignments.

That said, here are my top five tips to get started on Notion as a five-month (technically, two-month) user:

1. Basics first, fluff later

It’s easy to get wrapped up in creating the perfect, aesthetic layout with pictures, graphics and complex lists. I know because I did — at first. After watching multiple YouTube videos and scrolling through the marketplace, I learned that it’s crucial to lay the foundation of your organization first, then decorate with the fancy stuff. Get familiar with the database types, views and properties to get the most out of these features. For instance, I’m a visual person, so I immediately gravitated toward the gallery and calendar views to organize my school assignments; however, I found that the table view is the most helpful for keeping track of my course assignments and deadlines. Thankfully, you can store multiple views in one database and toggle back and forth between them instantly.

This video by Better Creating has beginner-friendly tips and starter points that helped me jump-start my Notion.

2. Purposeful creating is crucial

Once you get acclimated to all of Notion’s capabilities, you might be tempted to include certain features in your databases or pages simply because they’re cool. More complex capabilities like the relation and formula properties can seem productive at first, until you realize your databases get messy if you can’t navigate the foundation of these features. That said, it’s important to only use the properties that are useful to you. More often than not, simpler is better. If you spend too much time creating databases and pages that are overly complex, you’ll lose the foundational purpose of your Notion space.

3. Notion takes time — be patient

Take it from a girl who thrives on immediate gratification: you won’t get anywhere with Notion without patience. The reason I saw no progress during the first three months of downloading Notion was because I became frustrated within the first 10 minutes of using it. I watched videos and saw beautifully designed spaces and hated that mine didn’t look the same right away. It wasn’t until I decided to sit down, draft the layout of my desired space,

and figure out exactly what I wanted from the application that I started seeing progress.

I used Sab Yang's Notion template as a guide when I built my home page!

4. Use the power of views, filters and sorts

One thing I wish I knew earlier in my Notion journey was the benefit of Notion’s views and filter options. When I started to get the hang of Notion’s features, I went database-happy. In other words, I started creating multiple databases across six or seven pages. This got me nowhere. I discovered that I could store most of my information and tasks in one database and create various views of the same database across pages using filters and sorts. I was able to create a single “assignments” database, place views on each of my “course” pages, and filter them so that each view held assignments from its respective course.

5. Notion won’t solve all your problems

My last tip is to remember that just because Notion is a powerful, resourceful tool doesn’t mean it will magically patch all the holes in your personal organization. Another mistake I made when first using Notion was thinking I could dump all of my organizational sources into one application. Boy, was I wrong. As someone who transitioned from physical planners to Notion, I realized quickly that other applications might still be the better option for certain things. For example, Google Calendar is still my best friend; there’s no need for me to transfer all the data in my Google Calendar to Notion because Google Calendar still serves its purpose in keeping track of my daily, weekly and monthly schedule. Sometimes the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” still applies.

Even though I’m satisfied with my Notion setup, I’m still proactively exploring its features and capabilities to find ways to elevate my experience. I hope this convinces you to at least explore the application, and if you do, I hope my tips are in the slightest way helpful.