How to Take Notes with Notion

Notion is free software for personal use and can be extended to its pro version that supports team collaboration at a low cost ($4/month). Unless your company security policy prevents you from using it, we recommend Notion for your note-taking system, rather than EverNote, MS OneNote, and AppleNotes. This blog will discuss the basic concept of taking notes and how Notion can help you achieve your goals. Our discussion includes the following content: planning your content, organizing content in Notion, and some incredible Notion features that you don't want to miss.

Plan Your Content 

The first type of content is a task that requires us to take action, such as a work assignment, a social activity, a family duty, or simply something we'd like to do. When grouping a set of tasks, we call it a project. With this concept, you can create a database for each project and one page per task. When you need multiple projects to achieve a goal, you can arrange them as linked databases in Notion. We can call it a mission. With the described concepts, we can introduce the task-project-mission concept, where you can create a set of missions that include one or multiple projects, and each project contains groups of tasks. We will utilize this concept to organize our note-taking system. 

Task Management (TA) 
Every task needs the following details: 

• What to do - is specified in task Name and optionally with a Description listing the detailed objectives. 
• Whom to work on - is referred to as Assigned To. For personal use, this is optional. 
• Status of the task - typically has three Status: Not Started, In Progress, and Completed. You would like to make the status simple and consistent across all your tasks for easy tracking and analysis. 
• When to start and due - this is the scheduling and time management consideration. You would avoid procrastination to start tasks quickly and complete them with a reasonable amount of time. In Notion, because it has a function to specify start/due date in one field, we don't need to set Start Date and End Date as we did in other tools. 
• Notes - include notes taken during the task such as ideas, records of actions, and references. Notes usually is a free-text field, and it's a good practice to form the notes in the composition as DATE: <Who> has done <what >with <what details>. You can modify to set up your format, but you definitely would like to follow a consistent disposition to stay organized. 

There could be more content to add to a task, but we usually can use Notes as the container to capture them. You would avoid creating too many properties on a task because it complicates your task tracking and handling. The golden organizing principle is: make things simple. 

Project Management (PR)
Project management fundamentally introduces prioritizing, scheduling, and workflow control. Notion allows you to manage projects via databases. We recommend the following database views for projects (shown in order of our preferences): 

• The default spreadsheet-based view is efficient for adding tasks and changing properties. 
• The Kanban board view is excellent for showing the task workflow. 
• The calendar view attached assignments to the calendar for scheduling and time management 
• The gallery view show list of tasks in tiles for fun observations 

We don't like to use the list view because it lacks the structure for organized management. However, we recommend creating a database with a list view for task backlog or new requests. We call it the Inbox, which serves as a temporary parking lot for new ideas and requests. We can transfer the task from Inbox to mission and projects later.

Mission Planning (MI) 
Mission planning answers the fundamental questions of who we are and where we want to go. It's very subjective, so you have to make your own decisions. The essence is a wishlist that you want to achieve in your life to be filled with intentional or meaningful moments.

Documentation (DOC) 
Documentation is needed for project execution and management. You can use Notion templates to capture the best practices in what document to create and in which format. 

The described task-project-mission notes are operational. Next, we will talk bout some content capturing emotions, feels and knowledge on our journey. 

Journaling (JO) 
A journal document records occasions, memorable moments, or experiences.  Journal deserves a standalone project which starts with a journal database and a set of journals pages organized by date by default. We like applying the concept of journaling as a daily reflection which typically includes intent, grateful for, happenings, and action items. We can use daily or weekly reviews to be mindful and calibrate our actions to our purposes. 

We recommend adding links to your tasks in the action section of a journal. The links allow all actions to run in the context of a mission or a project. We also recommend you link journal documents to a task/project or assignment to record experiences. 

​The famous bullet journal concept has been adopted by many to keep track of to-do lists. Because Notion provides excellent task management using databases, you can skip tracking the to-dos in the journal section but focus on esthetic and emotional exploration.

Notion Template is excellent for creating journal documents with a harmonious setup.

Knowledge Base (KB) 
Knowledge base documents are special journals that capture the information and thoughts that can be impersonal and published for others to consume. We add some common categories, including reading notes, how-to, and FAQ documents. Each category needs a Notion template. 

Content planning is an essential step to prepare for successful note-taking.

Organizing Your Content in Notion

After clearing what you plan to write down, you can start organizing the content. Let's walk through the composition process in Notion.

Creating a project page with a database
You can create a database for your projects such as study, travel, blogging, and journaling (daily reflection). 

Creating a mission dashboard using linked databases
You can add multiple dashboards to organize them in a dashboard.

Creating task/content templates
You can type /template in any empty page and configure the template button details to create a template. We recommend you to make the following template for project management: contact and gate review checklist. 

The advantage of note-taking in Notion is easy to change the format and move to a different location. So you can start adding tasks first and then group or link them into projects or missions—another organizing principle: Avoid overthinking.

How apply notion of Cornell Note-taking method in Notion? 
Answer:  To apply Cornell note-taking method, (1) you use /toggle to keep questions as the title and details in the hidden content. (2) You add main ideas using comments.  You can click on the💬icon on the top to open comment side bar for review. 

How apply notion of Eisenhower Matrix concept in Notion?
Answer:  We can create a priority pro property in Multi-selection data type and then create a prioritized action attribute using the Formulas capturing the recommendation:

• Urgent+Important = Do (1) 
• Urgent Only: Delegate (2) 
• Important Only: Schedule (3) 
• None: Eliminate (4) 

Features You Don't Want to Miss in Notion

We will highlight some features that are helpful or take your note-taking to the next level. 

Searching for existing templates from the notion website can give you hints on organizing a specific type of content. We would recommend searching the template before creating your own. 

Turning on the Full width view option can overwrite the default fix width view and give you a lot more viewing/writing space. 

How to make the full width view default in my browser in Safari? 
Answer:  Please update the template to choose the full width option. Then all your new entries with the template will be in full width view by default. 

Using Formula, Relation property types can create ugoal chart and automatics tracking progress.

What are the useful useful keyboard shortcut?
​Answer: Please refer to the full list at Notion office website: https://www.notion.so/help/keyboard-shortcuts.  The following is the list of shortcuts that we found most useful. 

​Display/Navigation
cmd+option+t : display with toggle on.
cmd+p: search within Notion
cmd⌘ +shift⇧ +L: switch to to dark view mode
Text Editing
<text>: Italic
<text>: bold
^<text>^: Pre-formated text
#: header 1 ## header 2 ### header 3

• : add a bullet list

/<color>+b: change text background or font color, e.g. /redb (red background)
cmd⌘+I: Italic font
Highlight a text and type command+shift+m to add a comment
Page Editing
/callout: add callout notes
>+space**: open the toggle options.

• “+space: open the quote option.
• /web: add external link.
• /image: add image.
• /toc: add content index.
• [[: create an inline link.
• /page: create a new page.
• +: create a sub page.
• []: add a checkbox.
• @: add link to a page, a reminder or a person
• selection+option+drag: duplicate the selected content

In summary, note-taking tools like Notion are beneficial nowadays, but it heavily relies on our master of productivity and organizing concepts. We still recommend keeping a notebook and pencil handy for all project managers because it is ideal for quick notes and easy flip through to fresh your mind. Instead of calling it a notebook, we now call it the "idea book." The messages in an idea book are quick and short. We will then move it to our note-taking system for long-term administration. 

Highlights for Members

• (Basic) How prioritize tasks with The Eisenhower Matrix
• (Intermediate) How to use the Zettelkasten Note-taking Methods in Notion
• (Advanced) How to auto create grocery shopping list with Notion