As a final year university student, I’ve trialled and errored many different forms of note-taking alongside many different platforms on which to take and store said notes. From various Microsoft programmes (namely Word and OneNote) to Google Docs, but I’ve now transitioned through each of these and onto my newest discovery: Notion. Notion is the organisational website and app that I now use to take, store and organise not just my uni notes, but the rest of my life too, from to-do lists to meal plans, and so far it sits at the top of my ranked note-taking methods and platforms for a variety of reasons. First of all, it’s completely free (as long as you’re on the personal plan instead of the shared plan). And for another, you’re not confined to platform layouts in the degree that you are with Microsoft and Google programmes, as Notion is designed to be easily customisable and can cater to however you like to view your work.
The largest pro for me is that I love how visually pleasing Notion is. As a highly visual learner, colours, images and general aestheticism are important to me when doing anything and having colour systems for my uni notes is no joke. Notion easily allows you to alter the colours of and highlight your text, as well as having the options of putting your information into galleries, tables, lists, schedules and pages within pages, meaning you can set up your system in any way you please. You can also label each of your pages using the cute emojis provided by notion or you can input your own pictures, as well as the option to have an image header for each of your pages.
Though it can be overwhelming at first when you’re starting with a blank slate, you can find a plethora of tutorials on YouTube on how other people set up their pages and their organisational systems, and it’s more than likely that most of them also have templates of their pages that you can use if you don’t like the idea of creating your own. It can also take a while to get into the swing of it and figure out all of the controls and to set up your pages, especially depending on how many different ones you want and whether you need to transfer other files onto the platform. However, once all of your pages are set up and being used, there is nothing quite as satisfying. Everything on the site is easily editable and reorganizable; so, even if you find you don’t really like your set up after using it for a bit, you can easily move things around, which is another one of the features I love.
In short, I would totally recommend Notion for anyone looking for a way to revamp their note-taking style or for anyone who wants to become more organised. It’s one of the greatest discoveries I’ve made recently and has been the reason I’ve been able to keep my life, time and work so organised throughout the beginning of 2021.