With less than a week before the last semester of my senior year starts, I am not taking any chances when it comes to my personal organization and academic success this spring. Given the challenges and distractions of class in a virtual environment that I learned this past fall – and the fact that I am 0.01 points away from my dream GPA – I am meticulously planning using this incredible platform called Notion.
Notion is essentially an all in one workspace that combines the raw analytical power of Excel with the customizability and potential for aesthetics of Pinterest – plus you can take notes, make lists, embed things and all that jazz. The only downside is that there is no offline version, and some users have said that they don’t recommend keeping personal documents (passport, SS number) recorded there for privacy concerns. Be sure to do your own homework and decide if it is the platform for you.
While at first glance Notion is extremely overwhelming, like looking out into the void kind of overwhelming – there are lots of friendly people who make amazing templates that you can tailor to your needs. Unjaded Jade, Twirling Pages and Cafe Study both make amazing YouTube walkthroughs of their templates and my current setup is based on both Unjaded Jade and Twirling Pages. Notion also has built-in templates that are super easy to use if you want to build your pages from scratch.
In terms of setting yourself up for success the most important thing when setting up your Notion workspace is understanding what your need is, what your habits are and what kind of learner or worker are you?
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Do you want to check a visual calendar every day or does a weekly task list work better?
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Do you need to keep the interface minimalist for clarity or do you need to embed all of the lecture diagrams, stock images or videos for visual learning?
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Do you want the space to be a notebook, planner, journal or all three?
In my case, I wanted Notion to be a once-a-day check-in, with some inspiring images that would keep me coming back, and be a notebook and planner. I have seen many people use Notion as a journal and it just isn’t for me.
Now that you understand your needs, habits and style the fun part can begin – designing pages! Unlike Google Drive, OneNote or Notability, all useful and popular in their own right, Notion lets you use the visual space in a way that enables you to achieve your goals. Like any good system, elements can be in flux or be experimental and change over time. For example, I had a language tracker that I built to help me practice Spanish – but I found that I wasn’t getting into a good habit of using it daily. This prompted me to move the tracker to my main page, include a greater variation in text and change the kind of table that I was using to be more straightforward.
Possibilities for pages include daily habit tracker, movies to watch, language learning page, university or internship assignments pages. Anything goes! The goal is just to stay productive and keep things as simple as possible while functioning.