I’m sure by now you’ve at least heard of the Notion app that millions have been using in the past year.
For those who haven’t: Notion, in short, is note-taking or project management software. Basically, you can plan and organize large tasks or projects in app. The best part is, Notion isn’t just for the “sophisticated” and “fancy” stuff. You can use Notion for the simplest things that pertain to you and your interests. You can create a Notion page to keep track of your spending, keep a list of books you have or have not read, a digital journal, or make a simple to-do list for the day. Notion’s versatility makes it a great tool for students.
Before reading this all through, I’d recommend you get a Notion account if you haven’t already (a basic account is free) and play around with it for a bit.
How I Use Notion:
In Notion, you can create pages, and within those pages, you can create subpages. Since the majority, or really all, of my notes are digital, I’ve created a page in my Notion where I can store class notes. To be honest, Notion itself did pretty much all the heavy lifting for me. I use the template Notion offered for saving and storing class notes. Whether you want to take notes for a specific class in Notion itself, or want to upload your own notes, the template accommodates both.
Speaking of templates, pretty much all of my Notion pages are made off of the free Notion-provided templates. I recommend taking some time to explore all of these templates since there’s a good amount of them that serve different purposes. They’re elaborate, but at the same time, they’re really simple. I think that’s my favorite part of what Notion offers to all of its users.
Other things I use my Notion for are making to-do lists for school, keeping my supplemental studying notes and resources organized, and keeping track of my extracurriculars and any duties I have for them.
Get Creative with it:
Once you get a hang of Notion and its many capabilities, you can venture into creating your own pages from scratch. If you search for Notion templates on Google, you can view and download many different templates made by other Notion users for free. Some templates go as far as adding widgets for apps and tools like Spotify so you can blast your playlist without having to open the Spotify app, which I think is pretty cool. Other widgets include the weather forecast, clocks, or synching with a Google Calendar. You’ll find out that you can also spice up your Notion pages with gifs, images, banners, different text fonts, and icons.
Personally, I find myself getting distracted, and sometimes a little overwhelmed, when I download a really elaborate template, so I like to keep my pages really simple since I mostly use them for school-related matters. However, if you want to make Notion a comfortable space for you, then go for it! Everyone’s different.
One Last Thing:
If you need help organizing for the semester or just creating a space for your needs, then Notion is for you. I love how flexible Notion is and how it performs everything cleanly. I pretty much never close my Notion tab on my laptop because I’m almost always referencing it. Not to mention, what Notion offers for free (you can choose to upgrade and pay for a “Pro” account) is totally a steal.
While this article wasn’t really a step-by-step guide on how to use Notion and all of its features, I can offer some YouTube videos you can reference to help with this. I’m not fully a Notion expert, and there’s just too much to cover that’s better explained in a video:
- Notion App: Full Notion Tutorial for Beginners in 2021! [Everything You’ll Need to Know!] – https://youtu.be/lZ83Vu0SoG0
- A full notion tutorial: the basics + how to make your setup aesthetic – https://youtu.be/9ZeF7njSQ3s
- How I use Notion! *as a student* | studycollab: Alicia – https://youtu.be/vtyS2Jcv4Dk
There are many more videos on how to use Notion, so take some time to find the ones that help you the most!