Tour My Notion: Personal Productivity Hub
When it comes to productivity, I’ve always gone back and forth on digital versus physical. I had my bullet journal phase – the excessive amounts of washi tape sitting on my shelf is proof of that – but I’m pretty much over it now. The investment needed to make things look exactly how I want them to just wasn’t worth it for me. I can’t do calligraphy, I can’t make pretty charts, and despite my design background, I still can’t draw. On the other hand, I didn’t like looking at plain notes and lists and calendars, either. Visual appeal is half the motivation for me, like how great cinematography can capture me despite a mediocre story. And so, this is where tools like Notion come into play.
Two years ago, I wrote a post about how I use Notion to keep track of things. At the time, I was still recovering from a long-term illness and had only just re-entered the working world. In some ways, Notion reflected my health and mindset at the time: it was simple, functional, and got the job done. I didn’t need to make things pretty, I just needed it to do what it promised to do without additional effort on my part.
Today, I’m…also recovering from yet another long-term illness (thanks, body). I’m also about to take the next steps in my career. And in doing so, my Notion space needed a makeover if it was going to assist me beyond the basic to-do list and help me become a more productive person, both in work and in life.
The first and most important space in my Notion is my homepage, the hub that brings it all together. Previously, this was nothing more than a simple task list. Today, it features a calendar, events, tasks, trackers and planners, and a space for me to keep track of online orders (I swear I don’t shop that often, it’s just that New Year’s is when I get major purchases out of the way).
As mentioned earlier, aesthetics was a big part of why bullet journaling wasn’t sustainable for me anymore. So, each of my Notion pages features stills and GIFs from various Ghibli movies to create a calming, soothing atmosphere, especially in spaces where I’m essentially decluttering my mind. Personalization can play a big role in motivation, so the ability to decorate my digital space like how I decorate my physical space was important to me.
This is the space I always return to, where I determine what needs to get done. Did I make a purchase? Head to the finance tracker. Planning my workouts for the week? Fitness tracker it is. Having everything in one place makes it easier to remember what I’m working towards, unlike flipping back and forth within a notebook – or worse, several notebooks.
For obvious reasons, I’m not going to share everything in my Notion space. No one needs to know how much I make or how often I track my chronic pain. I’m also not going to get into how I plan fan content or the details of my farm or island (Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, in case anyone thought I actually own a farm or an island). But, I will share some of my favorite pages.
Admittedly, my goals tracker was pretty sparse until recently. Goal setting is important to me, but not in my day-to-day life. It was always something I left to school or work, like “achieve this GPA” or “complete these OKRs”. But now I think even the simplest goals deserve a mention, like how I want to listen more music this year or how I want to work on my balancing poses in yoga.
Then there are the bigger goals, like developing habits that are productive and not destructive. Reducing screentime, increasing stretching time, saving money, preserving energy, figuring out which foods set off my unruly stomach. I also included a few trackers for goals that are easy to quantify, like the books I’m reading or the cross-stitch projects I’d like to do next. As they say, the first step in acheiving your goals is writing them down.
My fitness journey has always been tumultuous because my health has always been tumultuous. Two long-term illnesses have, to put it bluntly, knocked me on my ass in the last few years in ways that really challenged my physical and mental health. And so, my fitness tracker seems to come in fits and starts, depending on whether my body loves me enough to let me love it in return with exercise.
Rhetoric about my health aside, fitness tracking is such an important part of tracking your growth. It can be hard sometimes to quantify certain goals, like, “am I getting better at this? Do I even know what I’m doing?”. But in fitness, the numbers often speak for themselves. For example, from the hours spent working out to how many push-ups you can do to how long it takes to run a mile.
For anyone looking to track their workouts, focus only on the numbers that matter. To me, calories aren’t important and can be detrimental to think about, as I lost a significant amount of weight while I was sick. What matters to me is time invested in working towards improving my health.
My product tracker, while definitely not necessary for everyone, can be a good template for tracking just about anything. Recipes, research sources, random thoughts and musings – just add whatever properties you want to track and you’re good to go.
For me, my product tracker helps me stay on top of purchases that can get a little out of hand and purchases that I may revisit in the future. I’m a bit notorious for buying nail polish on a whim, so keeping track of what colors I own prevents me from buying dupes. I’m still in the process of perfecting my hair and skincare routine, so looking at which products didn’t work and which ones I want to buy again can be really helpful.
This tracker, in a lot of ways, is pretty simple. All I have is a photo, a product name, and a brand name. Some people take extensive notes about their products or include a rating scale. For me, I don’t need extraneous details, but for others, those additional notes make all the difference. Notion’s flexiblity and adaptability for people’s varying organizational needs is one of the main reasons why I’ve stuck with it for so long.
Last but not least, my media tracker, where I basically list all of my favorite ways to waste my time (kidding). For each media type, my media tracker more closely resembles my product tracker, with an image, a name, and a five-star rating scale. In this screenshot, however, I’m sharing my “Favorites” tab, which automatically filters to things rated at five stars. Similarly, my “Not Started” tab shows things that I haven’t rated yet. I also included two of my favorite quotes from Bad Buddy (my ongoing obsession) and my own GIF of My School President (my current obsession and the queer jukebox musical of my dreams), because why not?
This tracker is pure fun compared to some of the more “serious” trackers, a trip down memory lane of my favorite things. As a bonus, it also helps moderate my media consumption, aka stop me from buying more video games when I already have several listed in my “Not Started” tab. I’ll get to you some day, GRIS.
And that’s it! This is what my Notion space looks like going into 2023, and I’m hoping it will not only make me a more productive person, but a more mindful person, too. While this isn’t exactly a tutorial on how to create a Notion space, which I’ll post in the future – if nothing else, it might help my mom organize her recipes – I hope it provides some ideas for how to shape your own. And remember, even though aesthetics was one of my main priorities, it doesn’t have to be that way for you. First and foremost, productivity tools need to be functional. As they say, get rid of what doesn’t serve you, and if spending time making things pretty feels like a waste of time, then don’t waste another second. Start with something simple, like a basic to-do list, and go from there. Maybe you’ll find out that that’s all you really need.
